Students to Stage Play in--and About--Locker Room

Heidi Duckler has put on dance productions on a rooftop, in an abandoned jail as well as a vacant gas station. Now she’s rehearsing students at North Hollywood High school for a program that will take place in a women’s locker room.

And, naturally, the students are practicing their moves in the school’s girls’ locker room.

“This is an interesting place,” said Duckler, artistic director of Collage Dance Theatre, which is producing the program. “The locker room is a private place where a lot of public activity takes place.”

Ten girls from North Hollywood High and members of Duckler’s theater company will appear in “Locker Rumors” starting April 29 in the women’s locker room at Valley College. The audience will enter through the shower stalls, Duckler said, and sit on bleachers inside the locker room.

At North Hollywood High, the students have been rehearsing once a week since February. Wearing gym T-shirts and shorts, they practice their moves for the show instead of taking an aerobics class.

It is not a conventional piece. The students were not given a script or dance counts to memorize. The girls volunteered to star in the experimental show when Duckler visited their classes to recruit students.

“I had a hard time explaining it and said, ‘Trust me,’ ” Duckler said.

Some students, especially those without theater experience, had doubts at first. But they all decided to stick it out, Duckler said.

“These kids don’t get arts education in the public school system,” she said. “They’re so deprived and so hungry for this type of experience.”

The girls derived many of their dance movements from their everyday gestures. Duckler said she is open to their suggestions.

“I’m not imposing it. We’re creating the work in progress together,” Duckler said.

“We get to make up our own curriculum,” said student Jennifer Low, 14. “There are no set rules.”

Low said she likes the way the show realistically depicts how students sometimes behave in the locker room--gossiping and rejecting the unpopular ones.

“It’s the way life is, not like it is in the movies,” she said. “It doesn’t sugarcoat anything.”

For reservations to “Locker Rumors” at Valley College, call Duckler at (818) 784-8669. The production runs from April 29 to May 1 at 8 p.m. and May 2 at 3 p.m. at the college, 5800 Fulton Ave. in Van Nuys.