BACKSTAGE ‘BYE BYE BIRDIE’ : Reviving a ‘60s Hit : Director Travis Michael Holder says it’s the solid script that withstands the test of time in the still-popular musical.

One of the major sets for the musical “Bye Bye Birdie” features a number of boxes, each stacked one upon the other, in a line across the stage. In each one sits a teen-age boy or girl who participates in a series of calls in a song called “The Telephone Hour.”

“It’s a teetering contraption,” says Travis Michael Holder, who has logged more than 1,100 performances of the play with national companies and on Broadway, including performances as a cast member with the original stage production. Once, Holder recalls, “the whole set came rolling down the stage toward the orchestra.”

Hopefully, though, experience will pay off. Holder hopes to avoid such problems when the Conejo Players’ production of “Bye Bye Birdie,” which he directs, opens Friday.

An unexpected smash when it opened on Broadway on April 14, 1960, “Birdie” went on to win five Tony awards--including one for best musical--and has since become a staple of high school and community theater. Its generation-gap comedy, coupled with an amalgam of ‘50s-style rock ‘n’ roll and adult-oriented pop songs, has remained fresh through the years.

In the original production, comedian Dick Van Dyke starred as the manager of an Elvis Presley-like teen idol named Conrad Birdie. Drafted into the Army, Birdie is set to perform a special farewell song to a token female fan on television’s immensely popular “The Ed Sullivan Show.” Selected to receive the honor is Kim MacAfee of Sweet Apple, Ohio.

“I’ve always wanted to direct ‘Birdie’ and to cast Conrad as Elvis in his later years,” Holder, 45, says with a grin. “Up until auditions, I thought of doing it that way.”

Reason took hold, though, and this production promises to be rather straightforward. Holder doubled the number of teen-agers in his cast, upped the tempo of some of the non-rock songs and made minor alterations to some dialogue to allow for changes in word meanings over the years.

“Instead of saying, ‘Wear your rubbers,’ ” he says, “I’m having the character say, ‘Wear your galoshes.’ ”

Already a veteran of the stage and a five-year cast member of the TV soap opera “Love of Life,” Holder joined the original Broadway cast of “Birdie” at age 13. Initially he played the role of teen-ager Harvey Johnson, but later replaced Michael J. Pollard as Hugo Peabody.

“We were all kids,” he recalls of the “Birdie” chorus. “We were probably kicked out of more hotels and restaurants than any other cast. But the minute we got to the theater, we did a complete 180-degree turn and became very professional.”

Holder notes that the show today is loaded with anachronisms. There are references to such things as the now long-defunct Ed Sullivan show, mentions of yesteryear stars including Abbe Lane and more than a smattering of what might be considered old-fashioned songs. But what holds up to the test of time, he believes, is the script.

“The lines,” he says, “are great.”

As with many fans of the original theater production, Holder denounces the 1963 film based on the play. The script was reframed as a vehicle for Ann-Margret, he said, who at 22 was already too old and worldly to play the innocent 15-year-old Kim. In the original play, Kim was a relatively minor character.

“When the movie showed up in theaters, we were performing the play across from where it was showing,” Holder recalls. “We went in and jeered at the screen. They took all of the fun out of it.”

Today, Holder balances his theater work as an actor, director and writer with a career managing child actors. His protege, Brandon Rane, plays Kim’s jealous boyfriend, Hugo Peabody, in the Conejo Players’ production.

Although most of the cast lives locally, some members come to Thousand Oaks from as far away as Cerritos, Ontario and San Gabriel. The crucial role of Mae, Albert Peterson’s domineering mother, alternates between Penny Puente (a teen-ager in the ’63 movie) and Patricia Van Patten, wife of actor Dick Van Patten.

“I’ve done six Broadway shows and worked with some great stars,” Holder says. “But some of the nicest and most talented people I’ve ever worked with are performing here in a 200-seat theater in Thousand Oaks.”