This can be a story about 60 children who misplaced their properties, their theater, their entire neighborhoods to the Eaton hearth because it raged via Altadena on a ferociously windy evening one week into the brand new yr.
For the scholars of Altadena Arts Magnet and Eliot Arts Magnet colleges, nonetheless, the story doesn’t finish there. As a result of in a exceptional show of group spirit, these children turned the characters of a special drama — this one about younger survivors who, decided to hold on their spring musical, channel their loss right into a one-night-only, sold-out efficiency of “Shrek the Musical Jr.” on certainly one of L.A.’s most prestigious levels, the two,100-seat Ahmanson Theatre.
At 7:01 p.m., a minute after the present is ready to start, the solid huddles backstage round their director, Mollie Lief, and their choreographer, Billy Rugh. The temper is quiet, anticipatory — reverential.
“Whatever happens on that stage, it will be brilliant,” Lief tells her college students, earlier than holding up a small allure. “In my hand is a phoenix rising from the ashes, with a green ‘Shrek’ background. All of you are truly phoenixes rising from the ashes, making something beautiful that will last forever.”
All of you might be really phoenixes rising from the ashes, making one thing lovely that can final eternally.
— Eliot Arts drama instructor Mollie Lief
Rugh then rallies the children, telling them, “Reach for the entire audience and be super, super freaks,” a reference to one of many musical’s greatest numbers.
“Energy, energy, energy, energy,” the group chants collectively, respiration as one, readying to storm the stage and wow the excited company, a lot of whom are from burn-scarred Altadena and Pasadena. With that, the children scatter to their locations, the home lights go down, the stage lights come up and the present begins.
“Once upon a time, there was a little Ogre named Shrek, who lived with his parents in a bog by a tree,” reads 13-year-old Dakota Bradley, from an oversize storybook, starting “Shrek the Musical Jr.,” about displaced fairy story characters who’re saved from the evil machinations of a callous overlord by an inconceivable hero who finds real love in a completely sudden method. There are farts and burps for laughs, however principally the present is about self-love and acceptance — about how goodness can and can prevail, even within the darkest of circumstances.
Altadena Arts Magnet and Eliot Arts Magnet college students in “Shrek the Musical Jr.” on the Ahmanson.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Instances)
Ninety minutes later the theater erupts in cheers and an effusive standing ovation for the ecstatic younger thespians.
“I’m sooooo happy,” says a breathless 11-year outdated named Journee Everly, who performed Donkey, as she rushes offstage after an encore bow.
“I’m sooooo sad,” says 12-year-old Monahmi Ruiz, who performed Dragon.
The women take a look at one another and snigger giddily, an unstated acknowledgment that they meant the identical factor. Pleasure and sorrow are intermingled as a result of this grand expertise — involving skilled units, costumes, lighting and sound, in addition to movies of non-public encouragement made for the children by Broadway superstars Lin-Manuel Miranda, Daveed Diggs and the casts of “The Lion King” and “Aladdin” — is over.
Jolie Simmons, left, Journee Everly and Dylan Hunt in “Shrek the Musical Jr.”
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Instances)
The present should go on
Tuesday, Jan. 7, was a very good day for the newly minted solid of “Shrek the Musical Jr.” They gathered after college for his or her first desk learn and headed dwelling with their scripts, brimming with pleasure concerning the musical. Lief remembers that when somebody opened a door to the surface, it regarded a bit just like the twister scene from “The Wizard of Oz.” It was scary but additionally dramatic and entertaining for the children who had no method of figuring out what the extraordinary Santa Ana winds had been able to.
Lower than two hours later, Altadena erupted in flames.
Rugh, an completed choreographer with movie and TV credit — noticed what he believes could have been the start of the hearth from his dwelling close to the Pasadena Rose Bowl. He was sitting in his lounge watching the wind make a tangle of his yard when he noticed “a little fire start” within the distance.
Choreographer Billy Rugh and drama instructor Mollie Lief oversee the manufacturing being rehearsed at McKinley center college in Pasadena in early April.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Instances)
The youngsters he taught would spend that evening and the next day fleeing. Nearly half of the college’s inhabitants misplaced properties, and plenty of extra can be displaced, together with greater than three-quarters of the solid of “Shrek the Musical Jr.”
Lief woke at 6 a.m. that Wednesday to a home crammed with smoke. She lived close to Altadena, and like many in that place, together with Rugh, was compelled to depart not due to a compulsory evacuation order however due to the overwhelming smoke that smothered the world like a poisonous blanket.
That they had already misplaced a lot … this might be one factor that we management them not shedding.
— Eliot Arts choreographer Billy Rugh
As she was driving to San Diego together with her household, Lief noticed her school group chat mild up with the unfolding terror: colleagues who misplaced properties, entire households displaced, mother and father in want of a spot to go — after which a video of Eliot Arts burning, adopted by pictures of the destroyed theater.
“I was in the car with two little kids, and I didn’t want to scare them, but I was just stifling sobs,” Lief says.
13-year-old Jolie Simmons, who performed Princess Fiona, additionally noticed the video of her burning college. That was after her home burned down. She was staying together with her mom, father, 4 siblings and grandmother — affectionately often called Nema — on the Pasadena Conference Middle, which had been reworked into an emergency reduction facility.
Eliot Arts scholar Jolie Simmons, who performs Princess Fiona, practices certainly one of her songs earlier this month at McKinley center college in Pasadena.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Instances)
Jolie’s Nema had lived of their household’s dwelling since 1977 and didn’t need to depart. Jolie’s father and Nema spent the evening of the hearth hosing down the home in an try and beat back the flames. When the mulch within the yard caught hearth, they lastly left.
Tears spring to the lady’s eyes as she remembers how a lot she beloved her neighborhood, the various hours she spent in her mates’ homes — and the way the group felt like a giant household.
“Eliot really was my second home, because I’ve played so many different roles there,” says Jolie, whose household has but to seek out everlasting housing.
“They had already lost so much and were disconnected so much, that this could be one thing that we control them not losing,” Rugh says.
College students from Altadena and Eliot Arts rehearse their spring musical earlier this month in Pasadena.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Instances)
‘Seeing your kid perform on this stage’
Middle Theatre Group and Pasadena Playhouse, two establishments that had a protracted historical past of collaboration with college students from Pasadena Unified Faculty District, quickly marshaled sources to assist the children stage their manufacturing.
The month earlier than the hearth, CTG introduced district children to the Ahmanson to see “Once Upon a Mattress” starring Sutton Foster. Dylan Hunt, 13, who performed Shrek, remembers watching together with his mom.
“My mom, she likes making these really annoying comments,” Dylan says, smiling, including by the use of clarification, “Because she’s a mom.”
The feedback had been about how good the present was — how good the day was — and Dylan determined so as to add his personal ideas to the combo.
“I looked at her, and I said, ‘You know what else would be nice? Seeing your kid perform on this stage.’”
After which, “under the worst circumstances,” Dylan says, it occurred.
Altadena Arts Magnet and Eliot Arts Magnet college students attend the matinee for “Shrek the Musical Jr.” on the Ahmanson Theatre on Friday.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Instances)
“We are there for our community when our community has always been there for us,” says Pasadena Playhouse Creative Director Danny Feldman. “It’s a very natural thing. It was about lifting everyone up — those kids and their families — in a moment they need it.”
The theater leaders introduced skilled vocal coaches onboard for rehearsals and welcomed the children to the Ahmanson for a full day of talks and interactions with their skilled workers, together with CTG’s stage and manufacturing managers, technical and store administrators, carpenters, electricians, and hair and make-up supervisors.
You recognize what else can be good? Seeing your child carry out on this stage.
— Dylan Hunt, 13
Those self same staffers helped to stage the ultimate reveals — one matinee and the grand night efficiency, each on Friday. Surroundings, props and half the costumes had been donated by the Anaheim-based, family-run stage firm 3D Theatricals, and the designers waived their charges. Rugh supplied the opposite half of the costumes from his skilled assortment. The lighting package deal was donated by Volt Lites. A large QR code on the again of the shiny program that includes headshots of the younger actors invited viewers members to donate towards rebuilding the humanities packages on the two colleges.
Drama instructor Mollie Lief offers path to college students prepping for “Shrek the Musical Jr.” earlier this month.
(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Instances)
Sadly, that cash may not be sufficient. In February, Lief discovered that she was certainly one of practically 150 Pasadena academics being laid off because the district offers with a reported $37-million funds deficit.
She stored that tough data to herself throughout rehearsals, not wanting so as to add tumult or disruption to her college students’ lives. Then, on Monday, she lastly advised them.
The youngsters, Lief says, are speaking about making a Could college board assembly their subsequent stage, to allow them to inform district leaders simply how a lot their theater instructor means to them.
