Hard Work Done Before the Curtain Rises

A play is a whole different experience backstage. The audience doesn’t see the duct tape wrapped around the lighting fixtures, the almost invisible mends in the curtain. Nor does the audience see the many hours of rehearsals, the hard work and the lessons learned when 45 young people put on a musical play.

The California Youth Theatre is doing two musicals this weekend at Barnsdall Art Park. They are “Strider,” a Mark Rozovsky adaptation of a Leo Tolstoy story of life seen through the eyes of a horse, and “The Robber Bridegroom” by Alfred Uhry and Robert Waldman, a musical fairy tale set in Mississippi about the courtship of a landowner’s daughter.

Because the audience can’t go backstage, here’s a glimpse of what has gone into these productions.

The 45 young people, ages 12 to 25, have been in rehearsal four hours or more a day, seven days a week, since June 21.

“That’s where they learn discipline,” said Jack Nakano, the theater company’s artistic director and founder. “They learn a trade, and most important of all, they learn self-esteem.”

The youths are directed by 25 volunteer theatrical professionals, some of whom started their careers with the group, which began 31 years ago. “Now that I’m 5,000 years old, people are coming back,” Nakano said.

He describes the youth theater as “a grass-roots effort for the arts, covering all aspects of performing.”

The young people come from across Southern California and are chosen in a May audition to perform two plays every summer.

The group also sponsors a workshop in July, and for the past five years has provided music, theater and dance teachers during the school year for the MacLaren Children’s Center in El Monte, an emergency shelter for abused or abandoned children.

“The Robber Bridegroom” can be seen tonight and Saturday. “Strider” plays Friday and Sunday. All performances are at 8 p.m. at Barnsdall Arts Park, 4800 Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles. The plays will be presented again Aug. 27-30. The performances, funded by the city of Los Angeles, are free.