KEYS TO THE KINGDOM : Ensemble, Not Bald Guy, Reigns in MYART’s ‘King and I’

Aside from Yul Brynner’s high-gloss pate, what comes to mind when someone mentions “The King and I”? Kids, right? Rafts of kids. Great, teeming bunches of kids, all, amazingly, the offspring of the same man (no wonder the guy had no hair; between the kids’ teething and the orthodontist bills, he probably yanked it out by the handful).

It’s this high juvenile population and the ample supply of big production numbers that makes this 1951 Rodgers and Hammerstein musical a prime choice for the Musical Youth Artists Repertory Theatre (MYART), a children’s company that specializes in family musicals with extra large casts.

Today through Sunday, MYART presents “The King and I” with 170 local actors, most of them ranging from age 5 to high school age. Performances will be in the Cypress Community College University Theatre.

The “King and I” cast is the largest yet for MYART director Dana Hanstein, 30, a Cal State Long Beach theater grad who founded the company in 1989. Hanstein, assisted by a staff of 13 theater professionals, has involved an estimated 1,000 Orange and Los Angeles county youths in the program. In the summer, MYART expanded, setting up a companion program in Hayward. Plans to establish a similar group in Seattle are in the works.

If you’ve never seen a MYART production, the thought of more than 100 kids talking and/or singing in the same small space may sound like hard time in the Day Care Center from Hell. Not so, says Hanstein, who promises “one of the best experiences” audience members “can give themselves.”

“This show has required more discipline from my kids, especially on stage, than any other, and they’ve really come through,” she said in a phone interview from her Long Beach home. “They’re working with a style that’s very different; their dress is very foreign, and they spend a lot of time on their knees and bowing.

“The high school kids have had a terrible time with that,” she added with a laugh. “I’m not sure any of them would want to go back to ancient Siam, but they’re really enjoying the experience.”

In addition to discipline, four months of training in various aspects of musical theater have helped make this show possible, Hanstein said. MYART participants, divided by age groups, meet one to two times weekly at Cal State Long Beach for workshops on such topics as dance, voice projection, audition techniques and costuming. Experienced students act as mentors to newcomers, and each member is individually advanced in the program as his or her experience merits. Seasoned students can serve as stage managers, production assistants and student directors for the company’s two annual productions.

In the realm of children’s theater, MYART shows are comparatively high-budget. “The King and I,” with a price tag of more than $26,000, includes a small professional orchestra as well as elaborate rented scenery drops and custom set pieces. Adult guest artists, including Lilliput Players member Jonathan Motil as the King and community theater veteran Tim Nelson as Lun Tha, are brought in to fill some major roles--a move that helps add polish to the shows and provides important role models to the children in the cast, Hanstein said.

“The King and I” is based on the novel “Anna and the King of Siam” by Margaret Landon. It is set in Bangkok in the early 1860s and traces the experiences of Anna Leonowens, an Englishwoman who served as governess and teacher to the King’s expansive brood. Central to the story are the clashes, and ultimate alliance, between the genteel Anna and the autocratic King Mongkut, a guy who considered polygamy and the abuse of underlings part of his job description.

“It’s been really interesting to see how the kids have reacted” to these themes, Hanstein noted. “In rehearsal, we explained the history (and) talked about the slave issue and the fact that the king had so many wives. I imagine they go home and ask their parents a lot of questions.”

Written at the behest of Gertrude Lawrence, the actress who played Anna in the original Broadway production, and widely accepted as one of the high points of Brynner’s stage career, “The King and I” qualifies as a classic star vehicle. But that’s not the case with MYART’s staging, said Hanstein, who has performed in and directed local community theater productions.

“One of the things I dislike most about theater is the prima donna attitude,” she said. To discourage this, Hanstein divvies up the principal roles in MYART shows among several children, with each performing on different nights. When they’re not in a lead, the youngsters join their peers in the chorus.

“The main thing I’m trying to teach is that working together as a group is more important than being a star,” said Hanstein, who says her program’s primary purpose is to build self-esteem and self-confidence. “It’s the ensemble that really makes our shows. People come to see 170 kids on stage all working together and looking good.”