Releasing his bat

Actor Jeff Leatherwood is getting a good workout — physically and vocally — in his latest role as the title character in “Bat Boy: The Musical” about a boy raised by bats in a cave.

He is scantily clad, locked in a cage and jumping around for much of the show, which causes a few cuts and bruises, Leatherwood said.

“It’s a physically demanding and vocally demanding role, but exciting because it’s a part I’ve wanted to play since I heard about the play three or four years ago,” he said.

The story is about what happens when a family takes him home and tries to civilize him.

“It’s the largest character arc I’ve had to make, from an animal raised in a cave to become part of society,” the Burbank resident said. “My character deals with not being accepted and being different and has a meltdown as the show continues. He reverts to his animalistic instincts.”

The show is being produced by The Relevant Stage Theatre Company at the Warner Grand Theatre in San Pedro.

In creating his take on the role, Leatherwood said he explored how Bat Boy might move, what sounds he would make, what adaptations he would use for survival and his reactions to the civilized world.

“I look at it as a sensory thing,” he said. “As a bat living in a cave, sound would be his primary source of decoding information. I think it’s more like a blind person seeing things for the first time, he would have had a sense of it, but now he is seeing it in a new dimension.”

Leatherwood brings a lot of strength and charisma to the role that actor Devon May gave to the original performances of the production, said Ray Buffer, artistic director of The Relevant Stage Theatre Company.

“Jeff has superior vocal and physical stamina,” Buffer said. “I have witnessed other actors attempt this role, and inevitably — either because they have not paced themselves, or due to the incredible demands of the role, they lose their voices in the middle of performances.”

Leatherwood shows absolutely no signs of fatigue and makes performing the role appear easy, Buffer said. But it’s no easy role.

“Jeff has to portray a myriad of emotions and behaviors as his character evolves . . . the genius behind Jeff’s portrayal is that you never just see one of these facets at one time — you see them all, because they are all what makes Bat Boy an interesting character that you feel for,” he said.

From the beginning of rehearsals, Leatherwood has put a lot of effort into the role, said Valerie Tosi, of Burbank, who plays the town gossip.

“Some actors take a couple of weeks to get into a character, but Jeff was right on top of the character from the beginning,” she said. “And that was even though he came in late to the production because he was cast a week or two after rehearsals began.”

A third-generation Burbank native, Leatherwood attended Bret Harte Elementary School and Luther Middle School and graduated from John Burroughs High School in 1998.

He was in the choir at Burroughs and did a couple of plays, he said, but received his musical theater training at Cal State Fullerton, where he is in his senior year. One of the highlights of his performances there was in “The Designers,” which won college awards, and the whole cast went to perform it at the American College Theatre Festival in Washington, D.C., he said.

Before his senior year, he landed a part in the tour of “Kidz Bop World Tour” based on the children’s CD collection that has sold more than a million copies.

“It was an amazing experience touring the country and I was the lead male vocalist in that show,” he said. “We performed in an arena, so I was singing for three to four thousand people five times a week. So that was fun.”

Hearing about the Bat Boy role was a complete accident, Leatherwood said.

“There are certain acting websites I subscribe to, but I was looking at Craig’s List,” he said.

“They had cast the show but were still in search of Bat Boy. I went down and auditioned, and they offered me the part, and the rest is history.”