TEEN STARS AT OLD GLOBE : OUT OF ‘THE WOODS’ AND BACK INTO HIGH SCHOOL

It was the big break an actor always dreams about. After going on hundreds of calls, performing with local theater groups, calling their agents, changing their agents and sending out resumes, they both got starring roles in Stephen Sondheim’s new musical, “Into the Woods.”

When the show closes at the Old Globe on Jan. 11, the next goal for LuAnn Ponce, 16, and Ben Wright, 17, will be getting their high school diplomas.

Not that there has been a lot of time to study.

“I’ve only had about three days to spend on homework,” said Wright, who still hopes to graduate with his Carmel High School class back in Indiana. He plans to fly to Indiana the day after the show ends and take final exams three days later. Ponce will be traveling to Los Angeles for her high school equivalency test two days after the show is over.

“Into the Woods” is a subtle interweaving of fairy tales, of the story of Cinderella crossed with the story of Rapunzel, of Ponce’s alarmingly practical Little Red Riding Hood--scheming wolves, beware!--encountering Wright’s simple-minded but endearing Jack. Unlike the fairy tale hero with the Beanstalk, this Jack actually grows up as a result of his experience.

But even in this fanciful setting, with the added fairy tale aspect of having their wish for these acting jobs come true, it hasn’t been easy to balance the life of a teen-ager with the responsibilities of a working adult.

Wright, who only thought of becoming a professional two years ago, calls the experience bittersweet. Ponce, who says she told her mother at age 4 that she wanted to go to Hollywood and become a famous actress, misses her family. But both confess that they would change their plans in a minute if another job with the movies, television or Broadway came up.

What makes them so determined? Ponce says she doesn’t know--but she has always been this way. Even in school, she recalls, her teachers described her as being “very dramatic . . . very talkative. Other kids were shy. With me it was, ‘Do you want to see me sing? I can tap dance.’ ”

Born in Waltham, Mass., she moved at age 7 with her family to La Puente, Calif., just an hour outside Los Angeles. One year later, she; her brother, Danny, then 6, and her brother, Jamie, then 3, were taken to the office of agent Dorothy Day Otis on Sunset Boulevard.

LuAnn sang “Tomorrow,” Danny did an Edith Bunker imitation, and 3-year-old Jamie climbed up on a chair too high for his feet to reach the ground, reached into his pocket and asked Otis if she would like some Certs.

“We were falling all over each other, interrupting. It was the Ponce family circus,” Ponce said. The agent signed all of them that day.

Today, Danny Ponce is a regular on the television series “Valerie,” Jamie has appeared in a salad dressing commercial, and 5-year-old Michael, who had not been born at the time of the audition, can be seen in various print advertisements. There is one more brother, Willie, who is 5 months old, but he hasn’t auditioned for anything yet.

Their mother, Dianne, who is divorced, is their full-time manager.

Although Ponce hasn’t had what anyone would call a “normal” childhood, she insists that she never wanted one.

“Kids would be coming up to me at school and say, ‘Did you see that guy over there? He’s so cute,’ ” she said. “And I’d be thinking, ‘Oh God, did I get a call today?’ Or someone would be asking if I wanted to go to the mall and I’d say, ‘No, I have to go home and listen to the answering machine.’ ”

In contrast, Wright is very conscious of the normality he would be giving up if he goes for his dream of being a singer. It was because of the choice Jack has to make--climbing the beanstalk or staying safely at home--that Wright understood that he has choices to make, too. In the first week of rehearsals in New York--the show started out at Playwright’s Horizons there--Wright broke down in the middle of his song, “Giants in the Sky.” The lyrics, he said, hit too close to home:

And you think of all the things you’ve seen,

And you wish that you could live in between,

And you’re back again, only different than before.

“I was embarrassed,” he said. “I thought it was terrible. What is the director going to think of me? But he (James Lapine) . . . came over to me and put his arm around me and said, ‘Don’t worry about it. I’m glad you can do that.’ He comforted me and said, ‘Be glad about it. There are some people who can’t do it.’ ”

Wright was born in Indianapolis, but the family moved (also at age 7, like Ponce’s) to Carmel, Ind. When he was 8, the same age at which Ponce got her first agent, he tried out for a part in a local production of “Finian’s Rainbow.” And got it.

Later came theater in Indianapolis, operas with his church choir, “Guys and Dolls,” “Life With Father” and “The Magic Flute.”

“I never thought about doing this as a professional,” he said, until he heard about agents who, for a fee, would look at young talent.

Wright auditioned in the summer of 1985 for an agent in Indiana. He was 16, with bright red hair, and the lead chorister in his Episcopal church’s men and boys’ choir.

“Within five days (an agent) called and said Playwright’s Horizons was looking for someone to take the part of a 16-year-old redhead who could sing,” he said. Wright got the part in an off-Broadway show called “Paradise.”

Unfortunately, “Paradise” did not live up to its name as far as the critics were concerned, and Wright returned home from New York in early October. He had a few more auditions, but not much came of them.

A year passed. Wright worried.

“I thought this business was over for me,” he said. “I thought my agent had forgotten about me. . . . I was ready to leave school, I was ready to go to New York and go for another audition again.”

Then came the call for “Into the Woods.”

Since then, he has been trying to keep up with his Indiana life--by taking tests and doing homework assignments long distance--while giving all he can to what he calls a “wonderful opportunity” which is at the same time a very demanding one.

“Everything is a bittersweet sacrifice,” he said, “losing one thing to get another. You can’t forget what you’re giving up and you shouldn’t.”

One thing that makes it easier for Wright, as for Ponce, is family. Both families have been behind their child stars from the beginning.

Another thing that helps, Ponce and Wright agree, is having each other in the cast. Because they are close in age and in experience, Wright said, they can use each other as “sounding boards . . . sometimes we ask each other about technical things before we ask someone who is sure to know.”

And there’s something else, Ponce reminded him, smiling: “We make each other laugh a lot.”