Hailed by the Chief : Washington: A Valley theater ensemble is greeted by the President-elect before earning a standing ovation for an original performance.

They had traveled 2,300 miles from Van Nuys and Lake View Terrace and Granada Hills to perform an original and inspirational piece about the Los Angeles riots before the soon-to-be President of the United States and a national television audience.

But little did the 17 present and former Van Nuys High School students know that they would be personally greeted Tuesday by Bill Clinton as they waited in the wings to take the stage and, from across the theater, applauded by Vice President-elect Al Gore as he stood by to follow them.

In between, under the bright lights of the Kennedy Center and Disney Channel cameras, the Los Angeles Youth Ensemble Theater won a standing ovation that one cast member likened to “thunder in my ears” from the largely teen-age audience in the theater.

“Unbelievable,” said Evan Feinstein, 18, a Pierce College freshman, as he hugged his colleagues moments after the cheering stopped. “It was great to hear the applause and to know we conveyed a message. It just feels wonderful.”

The group, under the direction of Van Nuys High drama teacher Robin Share, performed Share’s “One Day in L.A.” at the “Salute to Youth,” a pre-inauguration event that included such prominent artists as Vanessa Williams, Boyz II Men and Kenny Loggins. Clinton and his wife, Hillary, as well as Gore and his wife, Tipper, also made appearances on the program.

While waiting in the wings to perform, members of the troupe saw Clinton approaching them to make his way to the stage entrance. The man who within hours would become the 42nd President smiled and shook hands with each performer.

“Oh my God,” said Rowena Roberts, 16, from Lake View Terrace, her eyes wide. “I’m never going to wash this hand. I have the President’s after-shave on my hand.”

After joining a group of 200 saxophonists onstage, Clinton returned to make his way out. But first he stopped to pose for pictures with David Barron, 17, a senior from Sherman Oaks, and other young actors.

The whole experience was characterized by Elizabeth Lee, 18, a Van Nuys High senior from Sunland, as being like “a movie or fairy tale. I don’t think it’s real yet,” she said.

The piece came to the attention of the show’s Los Angeles producers in December when the Van Nuys group performed it at the Pantages Theater for the American Teachers Awards, also broadcast by Disney. Share, who has taught drama at Van Nuys High for nine years and runs the Ensemble Theater, was one of 36 teachers from throughout the nation who were honored at the event.

Patrick Davidson, a co-producer of both the teachers awards show and “Salute to Youth,” said he chose the work because “we wanted a piece by young people for young people that had real heart and substance to it.”

The group’s expenses were paid by the production company that put on Tuesday’s show.

The sketch mirrors the actual experience of Share’s students--including some of those she brought here--who had just taken the stage for a performance of “Guys and Dolls” when they heard about the riots last spring. The production was halted as parents pulled actors off the stage and other performers caught buses home to riot-torn neighborhoods.

The seven-minute production takes the young people--a racial cross-section, 15 to 20 years old--through the responses of fear, rage, confusion and, ultimately, hope. A grandfather in a Korean family who had lost his way during the upheaval is returned to his concerned relatives by two black girls, who introduce themselves to the relieved Korean family as neighbors.

This new bond across the races is depicted as a first step toward understanding. The sketch culminates with the cast breaking into a rendition of “Morning Glow” from the Broadway musical “Pippin.”

For Roberts, who lives in the community where motorist Rodney G. King was beaten by Los Angeles police, the play “is real to the point where it’s scary. You’re feeling like you’re going to go through it all again.”

The message, said Philip Zlotorynski, 17, a Van Nuys High senior from North Hills, is that “there is a lot wrong in our society but there is hope for us. It’s not up to a group, to one person or to a community. It’s up to everyone. Everyone has to help everyone else. That’s what democracy is built on.”

Anxious and restless, the thespians waited for six hours Tuesday in the tightly secured Kennedy Center after an early morning dress rehearsal. They were clearly unhappy with the seeming chaos around them and such arrangements as being forced to change in freezing cold trailers and crammed six or seven to a dressing room. But they stuck together.

“For once in my life I feel like I’m doing something important,” said Tom Jung, 18, who lives in Granada Hills and is employed as a portrait photographer. “Working with such an incredible company and bringing such an important message to the American people--it’s a pretty incredible feeling to be able to move so many people.”

The long day’s tedium was partially broken by the presence of the other performers. For some, a highlight was meeting public television personality Fred Rogers, a star of the day’s other inaugural program for children and in whose “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” many of the group felt they had grown up. Others shared a makeup room with Loggins and watched wide-eyed as his long blond locks were curled.

As the time approached to go backstage, Share took the performers through a series of physical and vocal exercises to loosen them up. She sent them off with words of love and encouragement to “really listen to each other”--to draw emotion from the play’s theme.

Earlier, Share had said: “The fact that they can do the piece and hold their own against all of these professionals and maintain their composure and poise with all that is happening around them should give them a tremendous sense of pride and belief in themselves. I think they’ll never lose that.”

Shortly before taking the stage, the cast moved from the left wing of the theater to the right, passing Disney Chairman Michael D. Eisner and other studio executives. Barron, among the last to be fitted with a microphone, announced that he had been told, “This is Bill’s mike.”

The performance went off without a hitch. Feinstein said that this time, unlike at the Pantages, he was relaxed enough to enjoy it. Roberts said the audience response made her cry. Jung hugged colleagues and told them, “I love you, man.”

But the ultimate word may have come from Gore himself.

Sacha Padilla, 16, a junior from Sylmar who served as production assistant, introduced herself to him as they watched the sketch from the wings.

“That’s a great piece,” he told her.