Youths’ Rap Opera Asked to Perform at Inaugural Event : Save Our Youth: The group, deep in debt after only one show at the Civic Auditorium, needs to raise $21,000 for the trip.

Never mind a pesky $12,000 debt to the Pasadena Civic Auditorium.

Sure, Ron Mokwena and Misha McK are still a bit worried that their Pasadena-based Save Our Youth has been that much in the hole since Nov. 12.

That was when the group had to close its production of the rap opera “Graffiti Blues” after opening night at the Civic because only 385 seats in the 3,200-seat house had been sold and sales for five other scheduled performances were equally grim.

There is a silver lining, however. The fledgling group for troubled youth has been plucked from obscurity by President-elect Bill Clinton’s inaugural entertainment committee and invited to perform a portion of “Graffiti Blues” this weekend at “America’s Reunion on the Mall” in Washington D.C.

But another cloud looms: The group has to raise about $21,000 to go, maybe more.

On Wednesday, an official with the inaugural committee said hotel rooms had been found and at least part of their cost will be taken care of by the panel. The group also will get at least $1,000 in spending money on arrival. Originally, the committee had promised to pay air fare, but then backed down, asking the group to try to raise the money for the flight.

Group officials said Wednesday that they have raised about $6,000 and, because some good Samaritans are surfacing, the trip will probably proceed. (For information on contributing, call (818) 577-4019.)

Mokwena, 29, tells people in his forget-your-troubles-come-on-get-happy way not to worry about the money problems. The native of South Africa is a professional actor, and it shows in his confident speech and demeanor.

Even when the subject is painful--like the disappointing box office for “Graffiti Blues” at its first, and only, public performance--Mokwena and his actress-wife, McK, 27, speak almost entirely in exclamation points.

The rap opera about inner-city youth--”in iambic pentameter!” Mokwena always points out--includes a cast and crew of 32 young people, ages 10 to 23, some of whom come from group homes or low-income families.

He and McK talked about it all on a recent morning in their donated 300-square-foot office near the Pasadena Playhouse. Mokwena, who it seems is never without his cloth African print cap, squirmed in a swivel chair like an excited kid at Christmastime as he spoke.

“You should have seen that opening night!” Mokwena said, his eyes shining, his grin widening as he recalled the all-too-brief Civic stand. “It was FAB-ulous. The mayor of Pasadena said, ‘You know, I’ve never seen such a stunning performance’ . . .

“The (enthusiasm of) people that were there filled the theater!”

Even McK laughed at her husband’s enthusiasm.

“And it wasn’t,” Mokwena slowed his speech theatrically before continuing, “all about that (money). To us, there was an accomplishment . . . “What it (performing at the Civic) did to these kids, they’ll never, ever forget it.”

The problem, McK chimed in, was getting the word out about the play. Volunteers distributed flyers, and a couple of television stations ran late-night public service announcements. Plus, young people, who might have enjoyed the production, aren’t used to thinking about going to the Civic.

“Kids,” she said, “they don’t even think about that place. They think of it for old people who go to the symphony.”

They count the Civic engagement as a lesson learned on the importance of marketing, McK said, and not as an opening-night box-office disappointment.

Civic manager Rick Barr said he doesn’t want to rain on the group’s parade.

Barr said he isn’t insisting that Save Our Youth settle its debt before going to the nation’s capital to perform on a bill that includes Los Lobos, Little Feat and Peter, Paul and Mary at the kickoff event for the inaugural. Save Our Youth is one of 40 invited acts, and only one of two youth groups scheduled to perform.

“I’m very happy for them,” Barr said. “I think what they are doing is a terrific thing. But they sort of bit off more than they could chew when they tried to rent a hall this size.”

Perhaps it was a bit of a stretch, Mokwena admits, to think that a new group’s first public performance would sell out one show, let alone six, at the Civic when much smaller venues were not knocking at their door for bookings.

Mokwena and McK, who live in Pasadena, started Save Our Youth about 10 months ago on a whim. Mokwena was a regular on the NBC show, “A Different World” and in the Broadway production of “Sarafina,” and McK had a recurring role in the NBC comedy “Me & Mrs. C.”

Young fans wrote them letters: What if your best friend did something to you and you don’t feel good about them anymore? What if your parents beat you? What if you want to run away from home?

The couple thought that the performing arts could touch youth in the same way that it had touched both of them. So they wrote “Graffiti Blues,” put their acting careers on hold while living off residual checks and worked full time on Save Our Youth. About 200 young people have joined the group, which opens its doors to anyone. Other projects in the works include performing arts workshops and a toll-free hot line.

An inaugural entertainment committee member, who watched a CNN report on the struggling group and the ill-fated Civic stand, was smitten, and the floodgates opened. Local, national and international media--including the BBC--soon sought interviews.

That spotlight has taken the sting away from the disappointment of the Civic engagement, said cast member Marcus Steverson, an 11-year-old Altadena resident.

“I really expected a lot of people to come,” he said. “I also thought it was fun to watch, and it might tell you something about what youth is all about today.”

Meanwhile, cast members continue to rehearse the production, weekdays, from 6 to 11 p.m., in the gymnasium at New Revelation Baptist Church in Pasadena.

Vocal coach and actor Sam Phillips, 44, warms them up in the chilly, cavernous gym. He jumps, he dances, he reaches for the roof, he utters resonant sounds from the depths of his diaphragm; a circle of 16 kids mimic. Within half an hour, Phillips is drenched in sweat.

Mokwena and McK take over to rehearse the opening number of the 2 1/2-hour rap opera. (If the group is able to make the trip to Washington, it plans to perform that number, and other portions of the show, during their 45-minute segment at the inaugural event.) McK jumps up and down in her black high-top Converse shoes, punching a fist into her palm.

“EN-ergy,” she calls out. “Ener-GY.”

With the casts’ backs to the audience, Teo Hunter, 16, whirls around. “Now!” the young actor says ominously.

“Stop!” Mokwena yells sharply, tightly grasping the ends of a plaid scarf around Hunter’s neck. He glares at the cast and spits out a comment on the opening: “Flat.”

This is no cakewalk, cast members say. One 10-year-old Altadena boy had to drop out because his parents do not have a car, and he had no way of getting to rehearsal. Another 14-year-old actor was robbed by someone who held a knife to his throat at a fast-food stand across the street from the church rehearsal hall. Then there are the hours of discipline required to rehearse and participate in other preparations, above and beyond their school work.

Mokwena and McK have programmed every minute of the group’s planned five-day stay in the East. The cast will also perform at group homes, visit colleges they might like to attend, keep journals and conduct open rehearsals to help teach other young people how to act and dance.

Hip-hop dancer Paul Hawkins, 19, said “Graffiti Blues” has helped keep him off the streets. Three years ago, his grandmother was killed in a drive-by shooting by gang members while she sat in a wheelchair at her South-Central Los Angeles home. He has stayed out of gangs and now concentrates on dancing. For Hawkins, performing on the Civic stage was a dream come true.

“I felt I was a voice standing up there for youth in the ghetto who have no voice.”