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Fearing it was gone for good, Deanna Reuben ’79 recently regained her voice. Now she’s using it to help others find theirs.

In September, the longtime singer produced and headlined “Rhapsody & Song,” an evening of classical, jazz and Broadway music that benefited Alvernia's Hope Fund, which assists students and families in financial need.

The show held in Francis Hall Theatre included Reuben and Alvernia President Glynis A. Fitzgerald, Ph.D., dueting on “Bosom Buddies” from the Broadway musical “Mame.”

“It was a great night,” Reuben said. “We had a full house.”

And it wouldn’t have happened without straws.

After decades of singing professionally, Reuben lost her voice and thought her performing days were over. Then she read about Semi-Occluded Vocal Tract (SOVT) exercises, a technique that involves vocalizing through a straw.

“It rehabbed my voice,” she said. “Once women get past 50, they lose the flexibility. Everything changes. You can't sustain phrases anymore. Vocalizing through the straw equalizes the pressure and helps the vocal folds to vibrate better together without so much stress.”

Back in control of her gift, she hopes to teach other women how to utilize the technique.

“I want to keep singing, and I’m researching a course to teach the technique to women in the community,” she said.

The benefit concert marked a return to the Francis Hall Theatre for Reuben, a venue with which she became very familiar during her years majoring in music at Alvernia, though the room looked and sounded much different.

“I performed recitals there before they had the thrust stage,” she said. “We had little chairs on the floor, no sound system, no lighting, the acoustics were awful.”

Reuben cherished her education, especially the support given to her by the Bernardine Franciscan Sisters.

“I had two little girls, and if my mother couldn't watch them or they weren't in nursery school, they would come to class with me,” she remembered. “The Sisters would take them down to the cafeteria and get them cookies and cake. Or they would sit in the back of the class and color. And at that time, my mother passed away. I came to Alvernia in '75; she passed away in '77. I don't know what I would have done without the love and support of the Sisters.”

Her professional career took her to Washington, D.C., where she performed as a classical soprano soloist with the renowned Paul Hill Chorale and the Washington Singers in such hallowed venues as the Kennedy Center, Carnegie Hall and the Academy of Music. But continuing to make a living in that vein seemed out of reach, so after confirming her daughters weren’t planning to attend college in the nation’s capital, she moved back to Berks County and reinvented herself.

Along with teaching voice and piano, she transitioned into a revered interpreter of the Great American Songbook, releasing four jazz albums – three comprised of standards, one featuring Christmas songs – from 2004 through 2013.

But her biggest musical moment occurred with a single penned by a musical luminary.

Mike Stoller, one half of the prolific Lieber-Stoller duo that wrote such hits as “Hound Dog,” “Yakety Yak," "Jailhouse Rock" and "Stand By Me," heard her on a Los Angeles radio station and reached out to ask if she would record a song he had recently composed with another hitmaking duo, Alan and Marilyn Bergman.

“That was the biggest compliment that I ever have received,” she said.

She remains proud of “If the Truth Be Told,” released in 2018. But if the truth be told, she feels the arrangement is too fast and would love to re-record a slower version.

Though her career has kept her busy, Reuben hasn’t been a stranger to Alvernia, performing at the revamped Francis Hall Theatre multiple times since its 2010 renovations, including a concert she believes was the first after the upgrades. And she recently helped to revive Alvernia’s Seniors College, which offers educational opportunities to older students, after it had fallen by the wayside post-COVID.

“Alvernia is a very special place for me,” she said.