But it’s like this every year when the Sitar Arts Center in Adams Morgan produces a Broadway musical featuring local kids ages 10 to 18: What seems impossible on Week 1 becomes a miracle on opening night.
Six weeks before performing a musical in public on a real stage, the actors can hardly look at each other, they don’t know the songs and they miss almost every cue.
“My first summer I didn’t know how it was going to happen — but now I know that we always pull it off, somehow,” said Jhoselin Contreras, 14, who has one of lead roles in this year’s show, “Bye Bye Birdie.” Set in the 1950s, “Bye Bye Birdie” is about a rock-and-roll star named Conrad Birdie, who has been drafted into the army, and the publicity stunt his manager plans for live TV before the star leaves. But the plan ends up causing a lot of crazy problems!
This is the third year Jhoselin has been in the Sitar show, which runs July 28-31. “I love the drama of it,” she said of performing for an audience.
The 46 kids with parts in the show (another 16 work backstage or on costumes and lighting) auditioned in April. But rehearsals didn’t begin until the performers arrived at a summer camp that runs every afternoon for six weeks — and requires a lot of hard work.
“Some of the songs and some of the dances have been difficult for me to do,” said Ndidi Mason, 12, of the District, in her first Sitar production. But as with many of her fellow actors, performing is Ndidi’s passion, and she knows it takes effort. She says she wants to be “a dancer on Broadway” when she grows up.
For lead actor Forrest Penrod, 16, the hardest part is memorizing his lines. He wants a career in the theater, but he’s still nervous that he’ll flub a line. “I rehearse my lines when I’m in the shower, playing video games, reading the paper,” he said. “It’s ‘Bye Bye Birdie’ 24-7.”
The kids at Sitar get a lot of help from a professional theater crew, including director Lorraine Robinson, who has worked on many theater productions around Washington and is on staff at Sitar. She sits in the middle of Sitar’s 94-seat theater watching the kids go through scene after scene, offering a constant stream of ideas, changes and suggestions, as any director would.
“You want to be walking across the stage at that point,” Robinson might call out to one of the actors. Or if the kids who are not on stage for a particular scene are chatting and giggling, she will yell out, “Quiet in the house!” Additional comments that guide the rehearsals come from the choreographer, vocal coach, acting coach and stage manager.
It’s slow going to learn a two-hour musical. Four weeks into the camp, a run-through of the full second act, which is less than an hour long, takes almost two whole afternoons.
But opening night, Robinson said, is very special, and gives all the kids an incredible sense of accomplishment.
Elshadie Araia, 11, of the District, said he’ll never forget how his parents reacted last year when they came to see “Hello, Dolly,” his first Sitar musical.
“They were blown away,” he said. “They were just so excited.”
— Margaret Webb Pressler
Click here to view the article on The Washington Post's website.
