Show Must Go On : Drama: Despite violence, threats and setbacks, youths from the city of Inglewood’s production of ‘The Wiz’ open their play on schedule.

Three weeks before opening, the cast lost its scarecrow--a pint-sized 16-year-old who had to drop out and go into hiding after two carloads of gangbangers came looking for him.

The police told his sister, one of the best dancers in the show, she had better take a powder, too.

All this happened after one of the yellow bricks (as in road) showed up with knife slashes on his back. He was jumped on the way home from rehearsal. “He couldn’t dance for like six days,” said director Ruth

Ashton Blake.

Despite the real-life drama, the curtain rose this week on one of the most unusual federally funded summer job programs in the Southland. It’s the city of Inglewood’s production of “The Wiz,” the black stage version of the L. Frank Baum children’s classic “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.”

For the 50 low-income youths who were paid $4.25 an hour to put on the play under the tutelage of professional singers and dancers, the experience was every bit as magical as Dorothy’s journey to the Land of Oz.

Among the youths, whose families live on or below the poverty line, there are few who have ever seen a stage play, let alone been in one.

“Lion, stop blinking,” ordered the Tin Girl, played by 14-year-old Tyronda Long, as a makeup man readied her and the cowardly cat for Tuesday’s dress rehearsal.

The lion, 17-year-old Gordon L. Jackson, responded meekly: “Well, I haven’t ever put makeup on before. I don’t know what to do.”

Inglewood started the summer theater program last year, modeling it after one in Stockton. Officials in that city decided many years ago that it made just as much sense to have at-risk youths learning to entertain the community as it did to have them answering telephones and sweeping sidewalks for 10 weeks.

Staging the performances, however, is no small task.

After working with one scarecrow for seven weeks, Blake had to find and train a brand new one in only three weeks. School district police at Morningside High School, where the play is in production, told Blake last month that the continued presence of the first scarecrow and his sister, apparently the targets of gang members, might endanger the rest of the cast.

Blake has also had to tailor the play, originally written for an all-black cast, to a stage company that includes many Latinos. That’s why “Addaperle, the feel good girl,” became “Addaperle, the feel good senorita,” when the part went to a Latina. And the Tin Man became a Tin Girl when the most suitable person for the part turned out to be a girl.

Then there were the accidents that can befall any production. Torri Robinson, 14, had to be sidelined temporarily after falling down during rehearsal and injuring a hip.

“She had to take a week off,” said Blake, a professional dancer who was in the original touring company of “The Wiz,” and now owns a dance school in Inglewood. “She’s my lead dancer, the eye of the tornado.”

For cast members, though, the production’s difficulties have been more than overshadowed by the lessons learned.

“It taught me to read scripts and everything cause I wasn’t into memorizing,” said Thomas Windley, 16, who plays the assistant to the wicked witch Evillene. “It teaches you discipline.”

It also taught him about teamwork, according to other cast members. Shortly after rehearsals began, Thomas and another player, Dameond Fields, got into a fistfight. Now, they’re good friends.

Such progress was obvious at Tuesday’s dress rehearsal, staged for children in the city’s summer day camp. (The cast will perform the play this afternoon for Inglewood senior citizens and will give two more performances for the general public, free of charge, Friday and Saturday nights at 8 p.m.)

On Tuesday, cast members donned full costumes and makeup for the first time.

“You aged sister. You done aged,” a female cast member shouted out when she saw 18-year-old Loutresa Willis dressed up as Aunt Em. Though Loutresa looked every bit the matronly Kansas farm wife on stage, she sports a tattoo on her ankle and another on her upper arm.

Tuesday was the first time Marshawna Cooper, a dancer in the play, wore bright yellow dancing shoes. Marshawna had always rehearsed in her “combat boots,” as Blake liked to call the 14-year-old’s high black boots.

With only 30 minutes to go before show time, Keesha Ross, who plays Dorothy, wandered around backstage in her starched white costume and a black wig that covered her corn-rowed hair.

“I’m gonna do good,” the 16-year-old Keesha mumbled to herself. During a rehearsal one day, she had confided, “This play has helped me with my self-esteem because before, I was really shy.”

Nathan Kessman, the city’s cultural director, says Keesha was a shy youngster when rehearsals began. Now, after weeks of working with the play’s voice coach, Cheryl Holland, Ross is a star, Kessman said.

“They have a chance to look back and say, ‘Hey, look what we did,’ ” he said. “When the next hill comes along, the next challenge, they can say, ‘We put “The Wiz” on in 10 weeks. I learned to sing and dance.’ They’ll have more confidence.”

For cast members, that confidence began to blossom in Tuesday’s performance.

“I just loved the attention from the kids,” said Keesha after the show was over. “All I heard when I went down from the stage was, ‘Hi, Dorothy. Hi, Dorothy. Can I have your autograph, Dorothy?’ ”

How to See ‘Wiz’

A performance will be given today at noon for Inglewood’s senior citizens. Performances will also be given Friday and Saturday nights at 8 p.m. in the auditorium at Morningside High School in Inglewood, 10500 S. Yukon Ave. All performances are free.