Theatre Rascals Making Their Mark on Stage and Screen : Theater: Members of the youth troupe say their acting aplomb is rooted in their training. Their ‘Romyo and Julie-Mae’ wraps this weekend.

Marquise Wilson had less than 10 minutes to go to curtain, but the 13-year-old showed no signs of jitters as he spoke earnestly, almost humbly, about his experience with the Theatre Rascals.

“I love it,” Wilson said in his distinctive rasp as last-minute activity swirled around him in adjacent dressing rooms. “It’s taught me a lot. How to rely on myself, how to carry myself. . . .” He paused, his wide eyes searching the ceiling for words. “What you really learn,” he said finally, “is that it’s the little things that are big.”

Like several other members of the Theatre Rascals, Wilson is a working actor, most recently a regular on the ABC television series “Hangin’ With Mr. Cooper.” Wilson had some acting experience before joining Theatre Rascals, but most of his fellow Rascals got their start with the troupe, and many have landed parts in TV series and a variety of commercials, videos and independent and feature films. Among them are Jamil Smith, 11, for example, who has done two Nike commercials and has a recurring role on Fox’s “The Sinbad Show,” yet had no acting experience prior to joining the group. The same is true of LaCrystal Cooke, 14, who has played the role of Vanessa in ABC’s “George,” and Ian Monsette, 14, who has done voice-overs for ABC’s “The Addams Family” cartoon series. Yet all of these young actors insist that working with the Rascals is the most valuable thing in their careers because, as Wilson says, “you learn and have a lot of fun at the same time.”

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Theatre Rascals, a youth acting troupe out of the Crenshaw area in Southwest Los Angeles, opened last week at the Richard Pryor Theater with “Romyo and Julie-Mae,” a musical, urbanized version of Shakespeare’s classic love story made memorable by a host of finely tuned comic characters: savvy, sassy Nurse Bubbles, hopelessly nerdy McCrucious, flighty but well-meaning Lady Cappy and, of course, the star-crossed lovers. The play winds up performances this weekend.

The cast of 30, age 12 to 21, infuses the piece with such infectious energy and high spirits it’s difficult for the audience not to have a good time. But even during the production’s most chaotic moments--and there are many--actors are delivering critically timed lines without a hitch, projecting their voices easily and hitting marks on a dime. It’s all par for the course for the Rascals, who say that their stage aplomb is rooted in the training and personal attention they receive from their parent studio, Faith Acting.

“I was kind of scared at first. I didn’t know anything,” said Kenneth Brooks, 13, who joined the Rascals barely a month ago. “Now I’m more confident. They really help you out here, not just with acting, but how to deal with people. They teach you that what matters is what’s inside of you.”

Faith founders Felecia Scott and Deirdre Weston know all about making things happen with little more than personal will. In May, 1992, with $600 pooled from their income tax return checks, the pair opened the studio in a rented office in the Crenshaw Square shopping center a week after half the structure had burned down during the civil unrest.

“We thought to ourselves, ‘Lord, what have we done? What if nobody shows?’ ” recalled Scott, a New York native who, like Weston, taught acting at Marla Gibbs’ Crossroads Arts Academy in Leimert Park. “We never thought we’d recoup our losses. But we’ve proven to ourselves that we were meant to be.” At this point, the school is paying for itself, they say.

The studio started with 17 students--the original Rascals--who urged Scott and Weston to keep up instruction after Crossroads temporarily stopped offering classes in 1992. (Crossroads has since sporadically offered some classes, but is currently not offering any.) The studio now has a roster of 130, including 30 Rascals, and last June moved operations to the more spacious Consolidated Realty Board Building in Baldwin Hills.

The emphasis on discipline, however, is unchanged. Weston teaches the bulk of the studio’s 12-week classes and makes clear from the outset that Faith is no place for stars or Hollywood-size egos. Whatever a child’s acting aspirations, he or she must put other things first: developing self-esteem, keeping up school grades, paying strict attention and respecting others. When students are accepted into Faith after being extensively interviewed and auditioned, they sign a contract in which they agree to stick to the rules or risk suspension.

“No one wants to be kicked out. Everyone wants to work their way up to being a Rascal, particularly the little kids,” said Weston, who wrote and directed “Romyo and Julie-Mae.” “This studio is very important to the kids, which is why I never have discipline problems. It’s very competitive, but it’s also like one big family. We all love each other and understand that responsibility, motivation and attitude are the key things, not acting.”

Twelve-year-old Rascal Akilah Johnson, who began training with Scott and Weston at Crossroads, agreed. “They give you a lot here--discipline, speech, movement, dance, audition techniques,” she said. “It’s demanding sometimes. But being up on stage makes it all worth it.”

* “Romyo and Julie-Mae” continues Saturday at 3 and 8 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m. at the Richard Pryor Theater, 1445 N. Las Palmas Ave., Hollywood , (213) 295-4996.