DATE: Friday, May 30, 1997                  TAG: 9705300078

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY MICHELE VERNON-CHESLEY AND BARBARA ANTIS 
                                            LENGTH:  175 lines

PLAYTIME: BEFORE THE CURTAIN GOES UP, CAST AND CREW PUT IN WEEKS OF HARD WORK

THE COSTUMES have been packed away, the lights turned off and the sets broken down and stored in the deep, dark caverns of the school building.

But the thespians at Norview High School already are thinking about next year's performance.

``They all want to do `Grease,' '' said Christa Whittaker. ``I told them if they could raise $8,000, I'd consider it.''

Whittaker is the acting teacher at Norview in Norfolk and, like Susan Mitchell at Green Run High, Edwin Jacob at Great Bridge High and drama teachers across Hampton Roads, it's her job to coordinate the school play.

``It's a headache,'' Whittaker said of the task, ``so, you've got to love it.''

Teachers come and go, textbooks lose their covers and cafeteria conversations change from generation to generation, but the high school play is one thing that remains the same. Shakespeare or Sondheim, no matter, the play is the one attraction that draws students with a variety of interests together for a common cause: the show. Behind the scenes

You can feel the energy pulsating behind the girls' dressing room door as the cast of ``The Wiz'' gets ready to perform at Green Run. The yelps and occasional belly laughs that slip out explain the note taped haphazardly to the door.

``Whisper, no yelling,'' it screams in red ink.

Inside, the girls pay no attention.

``Don't nobody bring me no bad news. . . no bad news, no bad news . . . don't you bring me, no bad news,'' they harmonize as they bounce back and forth. Everyone is moving: slipping on leotards; stepping into gowns; stroking combs and brushes through their hair, and singing, loudly.

``They're not really nervous,'' says Mitchell, ``because they're prepared.''

But the electricity generated by the girls, their constant chatter and their movements paint a different picture.

``Oh, I put on the wrong clothes,'' peeps Rhonda Tabb, a sophomore. She's dressed in black, everyone else in pink.

While Rhonda changes, other girls stroll in and out of the dressing room. Some come with orders from the stage managers, others just want to check in. They quickly fall into conversation about the play, school, life, you name it.

The behind-the-scenes jubilation is infectious. It's the same buzz that permeates the classroom-turned-stage at Hickory High School in Chesapeake.

Drama is brand new at Hickory, as is everything else. Hickory just opened its doors in the 1996-97 school year, so it takes a little improvisation to get ready for the first performance, ``The Importance of Being Earnest.'' The students must push desks out the way to rehearse. They use make-believe props because they lack the real thing.

``For dress rehearsals, we had to change in the make-up center,'' says Sara Knight, a junior. The December show was performed at the Hickory Ruritan Club because the school's stage was not yet finished. Rehearsals

Getting ready for the play is a gradual process. It often begins early in the school year with candy or T-shirt sales to raise money.

``There's rental equipment, lumber, paint, hardware,'' says Whittaker, calculating the expenses of ``Give My Regards to Broadway,'' which her students performed in April. ``The kids have about three costume changes, and that can be $30 to $50 per costume. It's a tremendous expense.''

After fund-raisers come rehearsals.

It's taken about six weeks for the students at Great Bridge High to polish their performance of ``The Hairy Ape.''

Three weeks into rehearsals, they're beginning to wear down, too many hours to put in, too much school work to catch up on, too much time, too much energy. It's hard to say what keeps them going; for some it's commitment, for others it's anticipation.

``Every production goes into mid-rehearsal doldrums,'' says Edwin Jacob, who directs Great Bridge's drama club. ``The excitement has worn off and the work strain has set in. It is like a `U.' Performances are made or lost in the bottom of that `U.' That's when you find out what the students are made of.''

Try tea with honey and lemon.

That's what helped Cristina Flagg make it through. Cristina played Maria, the lead actress, in Tallwood High School's performance of ``West Side Story.'' Cristina learned in December that she would play Maria. That gave her almost three months to practice.

``I would sing non-stop, in the shower, at breakfast, whatever,'' says Cristina. ``I would come home every day and go, `I love you voice; don't give out on me.' I'd drink lemon, honey and tea. That was my favorite. I think I went through a whole jar of honey in one week. . . . My mom just thinks I went on a sugar high.''

It's not easy participating in the play. You really have to yearn be a part of the performance, to be there when the curtain goes up. Ten-hour school days are not uncommon as opening night draws near. Some don't realize how much time they'll have to give to perform. At Norview, 34 students signed up for to be in the chorus line in January. By April, only 12 were left to perform.

Students may be excused from classes, but they're still required to keep up with their studies and make up work they have missed. They are asked to rehearse every day, sometimes two to three hours a day. At Green Run, for example, the cast could be heard tapping out dance routines or working the bugs out of songs at 6 a.m.

``I would leave school as late as 6:30, almost 12 hours after I would arrive,'' says Cristina. ``That didn't happen very often, but leaving at 4:30 or 5 was common.'' Cristina missed almost a full week at Tallwood during the production. ``I'm in honors classes, so that makes it 10 times the work I'll have to make up,'' she says. The crew

While rehearsals consume the cast's time, the stage crew is busy designing and building the set, tweaking the lighting and working on the sound. It takes more than actors to produce a school play. There are the musicians, the singers, the techies and more. The teens may direct the play or choreograph the dance routines. Whatever their talent or specialty, there's a place for them in the school play.

For Green Run junior Steven Codling II, that place is somewhere in the middle of the 763-seat auditorium. Steven controls the sound board. He twists the knobs and toys with the wires. He's making adjustments to the microphones. One failed him on opening night; now it's time for Plan B.

``I'm not a very good actor,'' says Steven. ``Plus, I can't carry a tune. I'm mainly a computer geek. This gives me a chance to work with technology.'' Steven knew he wanted to be a part of this year's play, so he signed on and found a place to put his computer skills to work. He's never worked the sound board before, so this is on-the-job training.

While Steven finds technology exciting, Jenifer Tennant and Jesse Hinson have fallen into their roles as stage managers.

``It's a great deal of responsibility,'' says Jenifer, a Green Run junior. ``We asked for it.''

Jenifer doesn't stop working as she talks; there's too much that needs to be done. She and Jesse, a senior, move a large wooden structure. It's Dorothy's house. As she pushes and pulls the house, Jenifer shouts orders to other stage hands.

``Make sure we have all the actors on stage, props, volunteers,'' she commands. ``And tell them to be quiet in the dressing room.''

Those girls still aren't paying attention to the ``whisper'' sign.

``There are two different sides to the crew,'' explains Adam Lenda, a 16-year-old at Hickory High School. ``The first is the more technical side. This is the sound, lighting and things like that. The second is the running crew, which helps with the set changes.''

Adam is a member of the technical crew. He's ready for opening night and its likely foibles. That's because the crew has just run through a disaster rehearsal - a run-through with several planned mishaps. Anything can go wrong during the disaster rehearsal, and many things do.

``Mr. (Michael-Timothy) Rehbaum programmed it so the lights would go out and I had to fix that,'' says Adam. ``He also put in the wrong sound cues, like a machine gun sound when horses are supposed to whinny. By the time we were done, it wasn't even the same play, but it really helped us to learn to improvise in case something really happens.'' The performance

Something usually does happen, says Mitchell.

That's why she took notes during dress rehearsal. Now, hours before the real performance, she's taping those notes in the hallways outside the Green Run dressing rooms.

``Don't react until the lion says, `It's not my fault,''' says one message.

``We need more people to help with set change on Wiz's throne,'' says another.

Meanwhile, the musicians begin to file into the Choral Room. The girls who will sell concessions stake out a corner of the room. There they sift through two large bags of popcorn, transferring the salty morsels into smaller bags that they'll sell for 50 cents each.

It's almost time for the curtain to go up, and the cast and crew are ready.

At Great Bridge, 16-year-old Patrick Knee peeks through the curtain. He has every line, every move memorized. He and Nathan James, 15, are armed with pocket-size flashlights; they'll lead the actors and actresses out of the darkness and off the stage.

At Green Run, Jesse Hinson and Jenifer Tennant gaze into the fuzzy glow of a television monitor. The monitor lets them watch the actors onstage as they ready the cast and crew backstage.

And at Tallwood, Cristina Flagg waits for her cue.

``You get anxious,'' she says. You're sitting there with your co-star and you're holding hands and it's like, `I gotta go do it.' Once you get out there and the lights go on, it's all good.'' MEMO: Contributing to this story were Barbara Antis of Hickory High

School, Savy Beng of Green Run High School and Sheena Mann, Norview

High School ILLUSTRATION: Color photos

VICKI CRONIS, The Virginian-Pilot

Zack Pattee...as Tin Man

Lil'Beth McKinney...Shateisha Collins

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