THEATER : The Small Wonder of ‘Miss Saigon’

Surrounded by toys in a small room decorated with Lion King decals and the scrawled artwork of children, Remi Shimazu, 4, looks as if she is in a preschool, not a blockbuster.

“Is all the audience out there?” she asks, pausing only briefly during a game of Mickey Mouse Yahtzee.

Remi is in her backstage dressing room at the Ahmanson Theatre in Downtown Los Angeles, waiting for her July 13 debut in the musical “Miss Saigon.” She is one of four children--three of them girls--who have been chosen since the show opened in January to play Tam--the son of an American GI and Vietnamese bar girl torn from one another during the 1975 American evacuation from Saigon.

The children are replaced once they literally outgrow the role, exceeding the 41-inch height requirement that keeps them looking the age of 3-year-old Tam.

As one of two girls who now share the role--each performing four shows a week--the 39-inch-tall Remi is about to face an audience of more than 1,900 people in a scene where she’ll be yanked from one actor’s arms to another. After the struggle, an enraged actor will tower over her with a 4-inch knife before being shot dead at Remi’s feet.

At first, most of the children who have played Tam are frightened by the scene in which Kim, Tam’s mother, struggles to save him from the wrath of Thuy, a jealous cousin she was betrothed to as a child but does not love.

But not Remi. Since she was 3, the Playa del Rey girl has been telling her parents, “I want to be in the TV” and “I want to do a Remi video.”

So, Joyce and Kirk Shimazu, who own a design studio in Culver City, took their daughter to the May audition with about 150 other children.

Cherese Campo, director of “Miss Saigon,” said she looks for children who aren’t too extroverted or “show business-y.” She simply asks them to perform simple tasks and chooses those who, in addition to looking the part, follow instructions well.

The key to getting performers as young as Remi to act is not to expect them to act, she said.

“You have to realize that these kids have none of the motivations normal actors do,” she said. “It’s not about the money. It’s not about ego, the applause or stardom. To them, it’s all about fun and playing games.”

So to Remi, the dramatic scene is just another chance to play what she calls the “Tam game.” But she gets paid about $1,000 a week to do it.

Turning work into child’s play is also one way of ensuring that the child actors know the production is pretend, said Patti Finn, officially Remi’s stage teacher, but known among the cast as the “Tam Wrangler.”

In addition, children are shown that the props are fake; Remi played with a plastic knife that played music while waiting for her debut. And Allen Hong, the actor who plays Thuy, spends hours playing with the children to reassure them that he does not intend to harm them.

Remi’s parents said that any worries they had about Remi’s role in the musical vanished once they saw how it all works. They began escorting Remi to the theater for rehearsals about two weeks before her debut. In all, Remi put in about 15 hours rehearsing. “Everything is done over and over again to show the kids that it’s fun,” Joyce Shimazu said. “She really enjoys it.”

The worst part of playing the role for Remi was cutting her hair. At first, she refused, her mother said.

But the worst part for her parents was the day of Remi’s first performance.

“My heart is in my mouth,” said Joyce Shimazu, waiting in the audience for her daughter’s big debut.

Backstage, waiting without a qualm for her first stage appearance, Remi won her game of Mickey Mouse Yahtzee, hands down.