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Tuesday, May 06, 2003

By Christopher Rawson, Post-Gazette Drama Critic

High school musicals are not all the same, nor high schools, either. To mark its final year in its elderly Homewood-Brushton home before moving into its new facility in the Cultural District, Downtown, the Pittsburgh High School for the Creative and Performing Arts chose to create its own musical retrospective.

	The students at the Pittsburgh High School for the Creative and Performing Arts staged the musical titled "Retrospective" as the final show at its Homewood-Brushton facility. (John Heller, Post-Gazette photos) Photo journal

CAPA has done the unusual before. In recent years, it staged musicals rarely seen anywhere, let alone in high school, such as "Weird Romance" and "Violet," and last year it premiered a musical that is still a work in progress, "Where Mystery Lies." The CAPA idea is not just to give students the creative fun of a big, all-school production, but to involve them educationally in the creative process from the ground up.

But this year was special, with an extra degree of pride and sentiment to take into account. CAPA is young as high schools go, having begun in 1979 as a part-time magnet school with just 35 students. But in high school time, four years is a whole generation -- so more than six full generations have now tumbled through CAPA's halls and danced and sung across its creaky old boards.

There was thus ample history to inspire librettist L.J. Yoerg, musical director David Pressau and director-choreographer Mindy Rossi-Stabler as they created a varied revue celebrating that history and showcasing the abilities of the current student generation by incorporating excerpts from nine prior CAPA musicals.

Called simply "Retrospective," the show was performed over two weekends, with no two performances the same. Created and staged in just three weeks without benefit of out-of-town tryout ("maybe there should have been a middle school tour," someone joked), the show underwent further shaping and pruning even after it opened. And since Rossi-Stabler decided to pay tribute to CAPA's history by including recent alumni, different combinations of guest performers further varied the show from day to day.

The result was far more personal than the usual high school show, giving students experience in the process of developing art, not just staging it. And the involvement of performing alumni mimicked the modeling and mentoring so important to the performing arts.

Molly-Kai Chandler comically centers the "Gotta Have a Gimmick" number from "Gypsy."

The show I saw was the very last, Sunday's matinee, giving an extra twist of real-time poignancy to its final, theatrical image: With the backdrop lowered to expose the rear wall, covered with painted signatures graffiti-style and a huge "CAPA bids farewell," a single work-light was brought on, and in its white glare three graduating seniors gathered for one final moment. Zack Brown, Sam Sero and Michael Wagner, this year's only senior theater majors, are a reminder of CAPA's small size.

That single white bulb is called a "ghost light," and "Retrospective" was indeed full of ghosts. In the most moving segment, students delivered short monologues to represent some of those important to CAPA history but no longer living -- security guard Mildred Pendleton, who bought lottery tickets for the whole school; dance teacher Lester Evans; art teacher Gretchen Jacob; set and lighting design teacher David Shremp, who always wore Converse sneakers and played a jester at Renaissance fairs; theater arts teacher Walter Parson; and student musician Tony Benvin.

But the spirit of the show was far from ghostly. It began with "In the Beginning," a song from "Children of Eden" adapted to the CAPA experience, then lifted off comically as Sero, impersonating principal Michael Thorsen, banished cell phones, barked out the morning announcements and announced plans for the new building.

Many small scenes of reminiscence followed -- snapshots of students from tremulous freshmen to confident seniors -- cleverly adapting songs predictable ("Downtown") and not (students in lederhosen singing "Goodbye" from "The Sound of Music"). Hopeful applicants sang "God, I hope I get it, how many students do they need?" (from "A Chorus Line") and delivered "To be or not to be" in approximate Pittsburghese: "Brush up Your Shakespeare!" replied the faculty, who then launched into "Don't Put Your Daughter on the Stage."

Molly-Kai Chandler comically centered the "Gotta Have a Gimmick" number from "Gypsy," explaining that in high school even the strip numbers are well-covered -- though there was lots of sex appeal in the corps of dancers. Jennifer Cobb sang a powerful "No Bad News" ("The Wiz"). And all that was before the excerpts began from "Once on This Island," "Chess," "Secret Garden" and other shows.

Some of the many standouts I recall were Sero's principal, Wagner's variety of roles, Margot Bingham as Ti Moune, dancer Jessica O'Hayon and Khaleena Yates and Amy Elwood as the two Violets. Among the alumni I enjoyed were dance captain Ira Cambric and singers Rob Benvin, brother of Tony, and Akilah Forston, remembered as a shy visual arts student who surprised the faculty by auditioning and playing a lead.

The show culminated in a graduation sequence, with the seniors in the cast being replaced one by one by the juniors who will carry the CAPA heritage Downtown into the new building, and then a sizzling "Brand New Day" that filled the aisles with song and dance.

As is its practice, CAPA made a virtue of its tiny budget, using the simplest of scenery made out of boxes and a few flats on casters, the typical stuff of theater classes. Student Brown designed the lighting, and Pressau led a small and jaunty musical combo.

Along with 28 other Allegheny County high schools, CAPA is entered in this year's Gene Kelly Awards for Excellence in High School Musical Theater run by Pittsburgh CLO. The marathon judges' meeting is May 10, nominations are announced May 14 and the awards gala is May 31 at the Benedum Center.

	Senior Sam Sero earns laughs with his parody of CAPA principal Michael Thorsen. More photos

Other schools sometimes think CAPA has an unfair advantage in the Kellys. It certainly does have a concentration of talent and more focused instruction in performance than many schools can manage. But its 300 students make it far smaller than most schools, and they're scattered across majors in theater, dance, music, visual arts, literary arts and voice. Just as with other schools, the musical is an extracurricular addition, with rehearsals falling outside class time. And the budget and the dilapidated facilities, including an auditorium with many a broken seat, would be thought pitiable by most suburban schools.

That will change when CAPA moves to its new building, complete with a well-equipped 425-seat auditorium. If it keeps its creative memories, esprit and commitment intact as its enrollment gradually rises to 600, CAPA will no longer be Pittsburgh's best-kept arts secret but one of its proudly showcased achievements.