Dramatic Rescue Ends Actors’ Impasse

If all the world’s a stage, the play’s the thing and all’s well that ends well, then there’s good news to report out of Van Nuys High School. Just when it seemed that the rigid rules of no less than Sir Andrew Lloyd Webber and the professional drama Establishment had put the Van Nuys High School spring musical in jeopardy, the teachers came up with a viable Plan B.

That is good news for the 37 students who had been preparing since early December to perform Lloyd Webber’s “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat”--only to have those plans crash headlong into adult realities.

It’s good news for the faculty, who had reacted with disbelief when they were told that they couldn’t stage “Joseph” because a professional troupe is performing it at the Pantages in Hollywood.

And it isn’t bad news for Lloyd Webber and company, whose explanations for not cutting Van Nuys High a little slack still seem like theater of the absurd to some people. At a time when Lloyd Webber--the composer of such box office blockbusters as “Phantom of the Opera,” “Cats,” “Evita” and “Jesus Christ Superstar”--was being honored with a new star on Hollywood Walk of Fame, some people ask, why all the concern and officiousness over a high school production?

“It looks like this large organization that’s dumping on this little school,” acknowledged Peter Brown, a spokesman for Lloyd Webber. “It’s a great shame they didn’t ask in a more timely fashion.”

As dramatics go, this story may not have a resounding climax, but it’s got a good cast of characters, starting with the distant figures of Lloyd Webber and lyricist Tim Rice. “Joseph” was their first collaboration, written when Lloyd Webber was 20 years old and Rice 22. Last fall, after they decided to stage an updated revival at the Pantages, the New York-based licensing company Music Theater International placed a freeze on rights for the show within a 100-mile radius of Hollywood, MTI’s Freddy Gershon said.

Excitement over the “Joseph” revival, Gershon said, prompted several requests from amateur groups in the Los Angeles area. All were automatically rejected by a computer that redlined the play by ZIP code.

The faculty of the performing arts magnet school, however, did not interpret the first “no” as meaning absolutely not. Dramatics teacher Robin Share, who last year was a finalist for Disney Co. Teacher of the Year honors, said she was aware of other instances in which exceptions were made and was confident that MTI would relent.

And the students, many of whom consider Lloyd Webber their favorite composer, were thrilled with the prospect of performing in “Joseph,” said Danielle Rodriguez, 17, a senior. With winter break approaching, the faculty pushed ahead with auditions and selected the 37-member ensemble from 114 students.

Rodriguez, who boards a bus near her Sylmar home at 5:20 a.m. to attend the performing arts magnet school, said she devoted much of the eight-week break to her goal of landing the plum role of the narrator. She bought two recorded versions of “Joseph” and was given a third by a friend to help prepare for the next audition.

But when the students returned to school, the faculty still had not secured the rights to “Joseph.” The news was a hard blow.

“When they wrote that particular rule,” Danielle said, “they probably didn’t have us in mind.” Not all the kids were so understanding.

Gershon said his company was only following standard operating procedures. To have made an exception, Gershon said, “would be breeding bad will.”

Share and other faculty members held out hope until Thursday that media attention to their plight would prompt someone--perhaps Lloyd Webber--to intervene and allow the students to perform “Joseph.” Finally they picked another musical handled by MTI--”Once on This Island” by Lynn Ahrens and Stephen Flaherty. When Share and music director Linda Blackwell announced the change Thursday in the sixth-period class, it was clear many students had never heard of it or its creators. They were glad when Share explained that it had won a Tony Award in 1991, and that it moves to a Caribbean beat, heavy with calypso and reggae.

But they reserved their strongest reaction for Blackwell when she displayed some documents and announced:

“I have in my hands . . . “

(Dramatic pause.)

“THE RIGHTS!”

They cheered and cheered. Nobody seemed angry or hurt anymore.

“People were more upset that we didn’t know what we were going to do,” 18-year-old Philip Zlotorynski said.

“If you’re going to be an actor,” added Rowena Roberts, 16, “you’ve got to adapt. You’ve got to be versatile.”