Plays Receive Anything but Applause From School Officials

You’d think everybody would have been pleased when Jaymes Wheeler and Jordan Seider borrowed dialogue straight from a Mickey Rooney-Judy Garland script for their acting-school friends: “Hey, kids! Let’s put on a show!”

It sounded good to student actors who would get the opportunity to spend the summer practicing the craft they were learning in class--particularly when Wheeler and Seider told them they’d be donating profits from the show’s ticket sales to their school.

But the plot thickened when the intended recipient, the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts, said the show must not go on--at least not with its name attached.

Officials said the school will refuse to take the money--and has ordered the students to cease and desist using the school name in their theatrical venture.

That has not stopped Wheeler and Seider, who have lined up financing, secured the rights to a play, rented a storefront theater, built scenery and rehearsed with a dozen buddies for a show called “Moonchildren.” It opens tonight in North Hollywood.

Most of the young cast and crew are students at the county-run arts school, which combines regular high school classes with specialized instruction in music, visual arts, dance and theater.

Drama students from the school launched their self-run Student Theater of California by staging two plays last summer and raising $900 for the theater department.

But instead of congratulations and thanks, the young people said, they got summoned into the school office and bawled out. “They acted like what we’d done was a crime,” said Seider, a 17-year-old who went on to graduate in June. “They wouldn’t let us donate the money to the theater department.”

Officials complained that the students hadn’t gone through proper channels and hadn’t asked permission before staging their plays. They warned that the do-it-yourself productions could have embarrassed the school or exposed it to legal problems.

The young actors ended up sneaking the money to one of the high school’s drama teachers, who in turn deposited it in the theater department’s bank account.

After that kind of debut, it’s amazing the young people bothered to even try raising the curtain on this summer’s productions.

But “Moonchildren”--along with a two-act comedy called “How the Other Half Loves” staged last month--are keeping the actors busy during their vacation while letting them raise cash for what they feel is a good cause.

“So many students sit around all summer and do drugs or watch TV. We’re doing what they teach us at school to do,” Seider said.

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Added Wheeler, a 20-year-old who graduated from the arts high school in 1996: “It’s hard for actors our age to break into the business, to find work. So we’re creating a way to perfect our craft ourselves.”

Sixteen of the 20 actors and backstage workers in the production company are current or former arts high students. Their ages range from 16 to 22, although a pair of actors who are 29 and 60 have been cast in older roles.

Last summer’s plays were produced by two 17-year-olds--Neisha Opper of Echo Park and Jayelle Wheeler of Pasadena--and 16-year-old Mariah Van Zerr of Burbank.

Opper also graduated from the school in June and will attend Humboldt State University in hopes of eventually running a high school theater program herself. She said she was stunned when she was called on the carpet after last summer’s plays.

“We’d been taught a lot of ideas in school, and we wanted to put them to use,” she said. “People usually encourage you to get a real job. So we decided to try to create real jobs for ourselves.”

Theater teachers at the school were supportive of the youngsters’ efforts.

“They put together a theater company which I think is smashing,” said teacher Norman Cohen, a Valley Village resident.

“These are talented kids. The theater department is extremely proud of them. The money they donated was used to produce one of the musicals the school did this year, ‘Into the Woods.’ ”

Several of last month’s performances at the 45-seat Bitter Truth Theater were sellouts. The show got a rave review from audience member Kate Shein, a Westside writer and former actress. “These kids are astonishing,” she said.

But arts high school administrators were astonished this week to learn that this year’s producers, Wheeler and Seider, have continued the shows.

“We’ve told them it was inappropriate and illegal, to cease and desist,” said Donna Thompson, assistant principal and dean of students at the 500-pupil school housed at Cal State L.A. “We have documentation that these people were all verbally informed. It’s not appropriate at any level.”

Thompson said school administrators are concerned about issues of liability and accountability. She said the young people do not have permission to use the school’s name in the show’s playbill or in advertising.

Besides the risk from those who might complain about being solicited for donations, the school could land in hot water if playgoers objected to language or subject matter in the shows, she said.

She described the young actors as “bright children who are a bit beyond their age” in terms of cutting-edge theater. “There’s always the chance someone will say, ‘My God, L.A. County High School for the Arts does this?” Thompson said.

In that case, she said, authorities “won’t just come to look at our books--they’ll come with handcuffs.”

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Thompson said she was unaware that students donated last year’s profit to the theater department. She said she intended to investigate--and take steps to avoid a repeat performance of last year.

“No, we cannot take their money,” she said.

Back at the North Hollywood storefront theater, the actors were continuing with rehearsals for the shows, which run this weekend and next. They hope to raise at least $1,000 from ticket sales and said they are determined to give the profits to the school.

Wheeler and Seider seemed to still be taking cues from a 1939 MGM musical--specifically the scene in which Rooney rallies youngsters by vowing they’ll stick together, stage a show and prove to adults “whether we’re babes in arms or not.”

“We’ve proved we’re legitimate, that we can donate money,” Wheeler said.

“We’ve shown we’re on the up and up.”