‘Colors Straight Up’

You’d have to have a heart of stone not to be touched by Michele Ohayon’s Oscar-nominated 1997 documentary. Ohayon introduces us to the wonderful people of Colors United, an extracurricular school project launched in 1989 at Jordan High School. The program offers the challenge of performing in musical theater as an escape from gang life. When we meet the students and Colors United’s leader Phil Simms, a warm, bear of a man who knows when to give a hug and when to lay down the law, and veteran singer-songwriter-actor Kingston DuCoeur, they are directing the young people in staging a loose musical adaptation of “Romeo and Juliet” called “Watts Side Story.” As vibrant as the documentary’s rehearsal scenes are, Ohayon uses them as a point of departure for exploring--with an amazing lack of unobtrusiveness--the lives of several Colors United members. As a documentary, “Colors Straight Up” is as admirable as the program that inspired it. Oscar Sierra pictured, holding Michael Ford are two of the poignant stories (KCET Tuesday at 10 p.m.).