Feature: Another boost for musical comedy

LOS ANGELES, May 1 (UPI) -- Musical comedy, which is having a new heyday in Hollywood, is also getting a boost from a program that blends show business with education in U.S. schools.

Music Theater International's Broadway Junior -- launched in 1998 -- provides schools with music, scripts, production notes and other materials for 70-minute special editions of Broadway musicals. On Saturday, the program takes the technique to a new level when inner-city students in Providence, R.I., perform "Annie" for Tom Meehan, Charles Strouse and Martin Charnin -- who created the long-running Broadway hit in the 1970s.

Students from four Providence schools have been working for six months with their own teachers and 20 Brown University undergraduate students in a workshop designed to help the Brown students learn more about working with children in musical theater. It's all happening under the direction of Brown Professor Oskar Eustis, artistic director of Providence's Trinity Repertory Company.

"Annie Junior" has been presented more than 3,500 times n schools across the United States. Multiply that by other titles in the Broadway Junior catalogue and the question comes up: Will the program function as a sort of Little League for musical comedy?

"I don't know if it will, but it might," said Meehan. "Let them get a taste (of theater) early and then they'll get hooked."

Meehan -- who won Tony Awards for writing "Annie" (1977) and "The Producers" (2001) -- also wrote the current Broadway hit, "Hairspray," based on the John Waters movie of the same name.

He said he meets lots of people who tell him "Annie" was the first thing they ever saw in the theater.

"We have kids in the ensemble of 'Hairspray' who said 'Annie' was the thing that got them involved," he said. "I hope that's good. I hope I haven't ruined their lives."

Meehan has a dry sense of humor.

Freddie Gershon, who founded Broadway Junior, said that -- far from ruining lives -- Broadway Junior introduces students to a culture that many of them know little about.

"It's not just about turning them into little Bernadette Peters, or the next Ethel Merman or Jason Alexander," said Gershon. "Their lives are transformed. These are kids who would be playing video games or watching TV. They're all working together and they're using their brains."

Four Providence schools -- Robert L. Bailey IV Elementary School, Charles Fortes Academy, Asa Messer Elementary School and The Gordon School -- will each perform "Annie Junior" on Saturday. They'll do it on the actual set where grownup professionals are presenting the show at Trinity Rep.

Meehan said it is nothing new for him, Strouse and Charnin to be in the audience for "Annie." But he acknowledged that even he occasionally gets tired of hearing "Tomorrow," the show's signature song.

"Sometimes you've seen it enough for a while and you have to let time go by," he said. "Whenever we recast (the show), by the end of the day you don't want to hear that song anymore."

Gershon said that, for the most part, Broadway professionals who see Broadway Junior productions of their shows are moved by the enthusiasm of the young performers.

"I haven't had an author who has seen one of these not break down," he said.

The Broadway Junior training kit includes scripts, a fully orchestrated CD of musical accompaniment, a choreography video, a guide for casting, rehearsals and performance techniques, and curriculum guides that adapt themes of the shows for classroom studies.

"They're wonderful lessons for the kids, because no one's pontificating," said Gershon. "No one is lecturing them. A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down."

Meehan called the curriculum guide for "Annie Junior" a lesson about America's past -- with information about the Great Depression and the New Deal.

The development of the "Annie Junior" project is being filmed as a documentary by Jina Chang of Brown's Visual Arts Department. Gershon said he is trying to arrange to have the film aired on cable eventually.

"We had a meeting with HBO," he said, "and Discovery and A&E have evidenced interest."