Getting their act together

Behold America's theatre capital — twinkling, preening, clanging, stoking ambitions and devouring tourist dollars.

Now behold the drama students of Verdugo Hills High School, their parents ferrying them from their suburban Los Angeles neighbourhood to the Los Angeles International Airport, their jet nosing eastwards, their headphones tuned to the Broadway channel.

There are 14 of them, aged between 14 and 18, and they are embarking on a five-day blitz of Broadway shows and Manhattan landmarks.

Their jet zooms into Newark, New Jersey. Their bus rumbles through Lincoln Tunnel.

Their teacher-chaperones, John Lawler and Katherine Morrison, march them through Times Square to a late dinner. Bright lights, big city, no parents.

This is a rite of tourism — your first Broadway show, your first circuit of Manhattan landmarks, your first chance to reconcile the real metropolis with the one you've read about and seen in so many still and moving pictures. But things may have changed since you did it.

Changing times

Now, an undiscounted Broadway ticket routinely costs $110 (Dh404). Four of every five people in the audience are tourists.

Little Italy is increasingly Chinese. Chinatown is increasingly Vietnamese. And Times Square is increasingly sleaze-free.

The children are different too. Instead of relying on such films as West Side Story, Breakfast at Tiffany's or Woody Allen's Manhattan, this group's idea of New York mostly comes from sources such as Law & Order, Sex and the City, Rent and the New York Street on the Universal Studios tour.

Day 1

After a visit to The Museum of Modern Art and a stand-up lunch from a hot-dog-and-pretzel cart on Fifth Avenue, they watch a matinee performance of Young Frankenstein.

Most of these students have just put on their own show — a three-day run of the musical Footloose — so they're not just watching the gags and songs; they are also noticing the spotlight operator, the choreography and the effects.

In New York, three or four sleep in a hotel room (in the tidy, efficient Wingate by Wyndham on West 35th Street).

They travel on foot or the subway, rely on the free hotel buffet for breakfast and eat a lot of hot dogs and pizza. Using group rates, they're paying about $50 (Dh183) each for their show tickets.

Lawler and Morrison have lived and worked here, so they know the subways, the theatres and a lot of theatre people.

Day 2

They're on their way to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, a visit that will yield lockets, mugs, key chains, statuettes, one rubber Liberty mask and more than a few photographs.
On the subway back to the hotel, at least five of the 14 fall asleep. But a few hours later, they're on the march again.

The first stop is The Drama Book Shop, where Lawler treats the graduating seniors to $25 (Dh91) gift certificates. Ian Campbell, 18, considers a collection of Agatha Christie plays. Chrissa reaches for monologues for women.

Dylan Smith, her boyfriend, peruses the monologues for men. Others climb to the loft to paw through musical scores, half-singing to themselves.

Then comes Spring Awakening, which won eight Tony Awards last year. Adapted from an 1891 play, the show is a coming-of-age story steeped in passion, wit, death, regret and crashing electric guitars.

In other words, it's about 10,000 miles from Young Frankenstein.

After the audience has cleared out, the show's resident director, Beatrice Terry, invites the children on to the stage for a tour.

They file past the props and gawk when 20-year-old star Kyle Riabko, on his way to get a drink from the water cooler, pauses to say hello. Chrissa — who has watched scenes on YouTube and even auditioned for the show in Los Angeles — smiles like a climber who has finally reached the summit of Mount Everest.

Later, the pizza people head to Famous Famiglia for slices. The burger folk, intrigued by the Harold & Kumar films, head across Eighth Avenue for some of those tiny White Castle patties.

Day 3

“A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse,'' John Seward, a drama student from the group says.

He has his Shakespeare flashcards out again. Lawler and Morrison have steered the group by subway and on foot to Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village.

While everybody flops on a bench and sunlight filters through the trees, an unseen saxophone player starts his day with something slow and soft.

In Soho, Morrison gives a little talk on the neighbourhood's iron façade and industrial architecture. They have lunch in Little Italy. At The Public Theatre on Lafayette Street, they receive advice.

“If you can imagine doing anything else but theatre, do it,'' says Nicki Genovese, general manager of The Public Theatre. “If you can't imagine doing anything else, you have to try.''

Lawler orders the children towards Madison Square Park. As a deluge begins, Lawler points his troops towards a tall, bemused man with cargo pants and a Whole Foods bag under his arm.

The man is Shuler Hensley, a Tony Award-winning actor who, since November has portrayed the singing, dancing Frankenstein's Monster.

A pal of Lawler's from their days at the Sundance Theatre Lab seven years ago, Hensley herds the gang into a Starbucks outlet and holds court for about an hour, telling how he started as an opera singer and somehow wound up on Broadway.

Hensley, aged 40, recalls muddling through day jobs such as bartending and answering phones at Fox (where he accidentally hung up on Rupert Murdoch) and emphasises the importance of listening when you're on stage.

He leaves them with these words: “Patience and perseverance.''

Then they're off to Xanadu, a roller-disco parody that's just as lightweight as it sounds.

After post-show pizza, they slouch back down Eighth Avenue towards the hotel, scarcely casting a second glance at the lights of 42nd Street.

Day 4

For their last full day in the city, the teachers, Lawler and Morrison, lay out a marathon itinerary: Grand Central Terminal to the Guggenheim Museum, across Central Park to the American Museum of Natural History, then back into the park for a backstage tour of the open-air Delacorte Theatre.

With the souvenir-acquisition clock ticking down, penguin puppets are purchased, and chopsticks, an origami kit, a shot glass, ear studs, a toy turtle and something called Galactic Ooze.

At the Delacorte, production manager John Frasco talks about how he keeps the Central Park raccoons from eating his props.

He leads the group below the stage and shows them miles of wires and cables.

Dylan, who is still sorting out his interests in lighting, puppetry, dance and props, watches carefully.

Later, at Ellen's Stardust Diner on Broadway at 50th Street, where the servers sing, somebody cues the Footloose theme on the sound system.

Chrissa, celebrating her 18th birthday, waves for the rest of her Footloose cast members to come up.

From three directions, they converge, scrambling to the front of the counter, forming a ragged chorus line.

Then, beaming, they snap into the choreography from their show — jumps, claps, kicks, turns, the works.

It ends in a burst of applause with a waiter hollering, “Congratulations, you've just performed on Broadway.''

Back at the hotel, Chrissa pulls out her journal and tallies up the adventure.

Three shows, three backstage tours, one interview with an off-duty monster, four museums.

Next summer, she vows, she'll look for a theatre internship in New York.

FROM THE WINGS

Theatre prowl

• For 40 years, TKTS has sold same-day show tickets of dozens of productions from a Times Square booth at 25 per cent to 50 per cent off . But be warned: The clerks accept cash, traveller's cheques and gift certificates but no credit cards. (There's also a transaction fee of $4 or Dh14, that benefits the non-profit Theatre Development Fund.) While its traditional site on Duffy Square is being renovated, the TKTS booth has moved to the New York Marriott Marquis on West 46th Street, between Broadway and Eighth Avenue. Hours are 3pm to 8pm, Monday through Saturday, and 3pm to half an hour before the latest curtain on Sunday. TKTS also sells matinee tickets from 10am to 2pm, Wednesday and Saturday, and 11am to 3pm on Sunday.
  
• TKTS has two other locations outside the theatre district (and those do accept credit cards). The South Street Seaport site (199 Water Street) sells same-day tickets and tickets for the next day's matinees. The Downtown Brooklyn site (MetroTech Centre) sells same-day tickets, next-day matinee tickets and tickets to Brooklyn events. The TKTS website (www.tdf.org) has a helpful “NYC Theatre 101'' page for newcomers.
  
• The Drama Book Shop (250 W. 40th Street; www.dramabookshop.com) dates to 1917 and features thousands of plays, scores and volumes about theatre people and theatre history.
  
• The Public Theatre (425 Lafayette Street; www.publictheater.org), founded in 1954 by the late impresario Joseph Papp, is the non-profit organisation behind the free Shakespeare productions every summer in Central Park's open-air Delacorte Theatre, usually at 8pm, Tuesday through Sunday. (Tickets are first come, first served, so you'll need to invest a few hours of waiting beforehand.) Throughout the year, The Public produces shows in several venues at its headquarters in Greenwich Village.