Steffanie Garrard just turned 19 and comes from a little Oregon town named Talent (no kidding). Neil Haskell looks even younger ("like a 12-year-old on stage," he says), though he's been dancing for 14 years. And Alison Levenberg, a Brit with about a decade's head start on them, is glad to be back for "my favorite summer job."

	Matt Polk, Pittsburgh CLO photos Hoofing it through the summer with the CLO's ensemble are, from left, Alison Levenberg, Neil Haskell and Steffanie Garrard. Click photo for larger image.

Altogether, they recently played a plate, sugar bowl, two napkins and carpet -- "you don't get to say that many times," says Garrard. And now they're contributing six legs to the 48 that never stop pumping and tapping in "42nd Street."

This many-legged entity is, of course, the Pittsburgh CLO ensemble, singers and dancers formerly known as the chorus, and it remains, as this week's CLO program justly claims, "the heart and soul of the CLO season."

Time was, the CLO's fabled spring auditions would result in a chorus of 24, half singers, half dancers, half male, half female, which would settle in for a pell-mell six-week season of six shows, produced at the backbreaking pace that suggests.

Gradually musicals changed, with even chorus characters individualized, so the backup singers and kick lines became the "ensemble." And those six annual shows expanded to nine weeks, with some shows coming in as tours. This year there are two tours, leaving just four shows for the CLO ensemble -- "Beauty and the Beast" and "Grease" to start and "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers" still to come.

The biggest ensemble show is the current one, "42nd Street," a throwback to the days when a big ensemble hoofed up a storm. So now the ensemble is at full two-dozen strength, augmented also by younger dancers for the opening and closing numbers.

That makes this the right week for the Post-Gazette's annual ensemble story, with the added kicker that "42nd Street" dramatizes the great theatrical dream of the chorus member who fills in for a lead and becomes a star overnight. That's happening in real life: Alessa Neek, who started the season in the ensemble, plays Peggy Sawyer, the rookie chorine who gets her big chance.

So scratch Neek from the ranks of the ensemble, but there have been additions, too, like an established favorite, Courtney Laine Mazza, on stage for the first time this summer, along with six other additions to the ensemble.

Schools that members of the ensemble come from tell an interesting tale. This week's total is Michigan 6, Point Park 5, Carnegie Mellon 4, Cincinnati Conservatory down to 2 (having just lost Neek) and Other 7. Two of the youngest and most precocious members, Garrard and Haskell, are just out of their freshman years at CMU and Point Park, respectively.

Steffanie Garrard

Garrard really is from Talent, a town not big enough to have its own high school but, since it's just outside Ashland, Ore., home of the big Shakespeare Festival, it's a town that really supports theater. She was mainly into sports as a kid (swimming, tennis, soccer, you name it), but in the seventh grade she played Little Red Riding Hood in "Into the Woods." A few years later, when she gave up volleyball to be in the high school musical, the die was cast.

"I pretty much knew I'd have to get out of the West Coast for a good musical theater program," she says, so she auditioned at Michigan and Cincinnati before deciding that "CMU seemed the best fit. It's such a personal choice."

The work has been intense, along with being away from home for the first time, but she says her class has formed into a supportive family and that's happened in the CLO ensemble, too, where there's the added attraction of mixing with kids from other schools.

"The rate you have to learn the [CLO shows] is fast, exhilarating," Garrard says. "It's a challenge that adds a real forward energy to rehearsals," which occupy the days while they perform the previous show at night.

You might not recall Garrard's sugar bowl and napkin in "Beauty and the Beast," but you might recall her blonde and dimpled milkmaid. In "42nd Street" her ensemble character is Diane, an elegant snob.

Neil Haskell

You couldn't forget Haskell's main role in "Beauty and the Beast." He started as "a village teenager," but once in the Beast's castle, he was the very acrobatic carpet, spinning gaily through the air.

It was quite a featured role for a rookie, but Haskell isn't as young as he looks. He started tap dance and gymnastics at age 5 back in Clarence Center, an eastern suburb of Buffalo, and he's never stopped. Eventually the gymnastics dropped away, and he added other dance styles -- jazz, ballet, hip-hop, lyrical and something called acro, which prepared him to be a whirling dervish carpet.

Dance took him to Male Dancer of the Year at the American Dance Awards at the end of high school. He's in the dance program at Point Park, not musical theater. "The training is, like, unbelievable," he says. "I'm learning to use my body to find where the movement should come from, not tricks."

He auditioned on the advice of a teacher. "I didn't know how big a deal it was until afterward. It's definitely taught me a lot about the business, what I need to do in college to get myself ready for New York, something most people don't get until after college."

Haskell has a head on his shoulders, though his mop of blond hair and youthful complexion remind you how young he is. And he's not blase about school: "I made dean's list second semester; my mom was really proud."

CLO executive producer Van Kaplan presents the seventh annual Julia Deberson Award to Alison Levenberg at a cast party for "42nd Street." Click photo for larger image.

Alison Levenberg

Over in Norwich, England, about a decade earlier, Levenberg grew up dancing, too, taking ballet, tap and jazz at the Norwich Central School of Dance. Then at 16 she started at the Doreen Bird College of Performing Arts in Sidcup, outside London.

Her first pro job was a tour of the all-female "Girls on Tap," and the second was "Spirit of the Dance," a "Riverdance"-type show that toured to the United States in 1998-99. "I've been to every state other than Alaska and Hawaii," she says proudly; and that tour also introduced her to her future husband, a stage hand.

"Touring life is very moment-to-moment," Levenberg says, "with new situations and scenarios to cope with. Your stagecraft is so important. I truly believe it's the best training ground."

She earned her American Equity card doing her first Broadway show, a revival of, fittingly, "42nd Street," which she did for 2 1/2 years. That's another learning experience, "learning to keep your show fresh and not to go crazy." She's been a Radio City Rockette and danced in the movie of "The Producers."

All this gives her perspective on the young CLO ensemble members, for whom she has some responsibility as dance captain. "This is a great learning ground, which is why I enjoy coming here."

The CLO's quick turnover of shows is a little like being on tour, "learning to roll with the punches. ... I really have enjoyed having a hand in guiding the young talent. They're trained very well. [But] there is so much you can't learn in school ... in a big theater, things flying around, costumes to get into, being responsible for yourself as an actor, it's a whole different world."

The CLO clearly appreciates Levenberg, whom on July 4 they honored with the 7th annual Julia Deberson Award, named for the long-time CLO executive assistant. It honors an ensemble member who best exemplifies high professional standards, passion for work and the ability to work with others.

In a Broadway show, the dance captain is usually a swing, watching the show to keep it up to snuff. But here, Levenberg also performs. Her favorite part in "Beauty and the Beast" was "chasing Cogsworth across the stage with a big wooden pitchfork," and she's one of the most elegant ladies in "42nd Street."

Naturally she appreciates that show's symbolism of the chorine-turned-star, as well as its real-life parallel: "That's the opportunity CLO gives. It's why I come back; that and the combination of professionalism and quality."

"42nd Street" continues through Sunday; 412-456-6666.