Show biz kids

Fame is still alive and well

by Bill Rodriguez

The slogan from the high-powered movie's title song -- "Fame! I want to live forever!" -- seems to have inspired its creators. A hit film in 1980. Two years later a TV series that the critics liked. And now Fame, The Musical, is coming to Providence Performing Arts Center February 23 through 28. Each incarnation has been distinctly different, but all have ridden high and sassy on an eternally cresting wave: the exuberance and dewy-eyed ambition of talented young performers.

All three versions follow the hopes and tribulations of students at Manhattan's La Guardia High School of Music and Art and Performing Arts. In the movie it was eight teenagers, including Janet Jackson and Lori Singer, with the main inspiration provided by dancer/teacher Debbie Allen. Choreographer Allen was the only one to return to the TV series, which had them wrestle weekly with competition and rejection, until low ratings sent it to syndication after a year and a half.

With the exception of the title song, only the setting and energy remains in the musical version. Characters and songs were replaced, but not the passionate performances, pumped up by the kind of yearning optimism that made A Chorus Line such a hit. The creator of the franchise, David De Silva, started developing Fame, The Musical in 1984, and five years later it was playing non-profit houses in Philadelphia and Miami. In 1993, it took off after an elaborate hit production in Stockholm, where it tapped the director/choreographer of the current tour, Lars Bethke. Its 14-month run in London's West End earned it a couple of Olivier Award nominations. Since the show's first tour in 1998, the musical has been staged in 16 countries, adding to a tally of more than 300 productions and 4000 performances to date.

There's one ensemble member of the current tour for whom the show is somewhere between déjà vu and an alternate universe. Jessica Cohen, 23, is a La Guardia grad who still feels lucky she got in. (About 800 students auditioned with her for acceptance, and only 25 were admitted.) She spoke by phone recently from Norfolk, Virginia.

Q: Are you one of those performers who always wanted to be on stage?

A: Well, I started dancing when I was three years old. When I was seven or eight, I saw the Broadway show Cats and I decided that's what I want to do. I just fell in love with it.

I always had a dream of going to La Guardia high school. And I auditioned and I made it and I was ecstatic! I don't think are really ever thought about my career until my junior year, when I started thinking about colleges and where I was going to go, what I would major in [at NYU]. I decided to stick with dance, that this was what I wanted to do, be in the business. But I think it really found me, I don't think I really ever thought about it too much. It just became second nature -- that was my life, that came before anything.

Q: How was your family with this? Did they support you?

A: Oh, yeah. Total and complete support and love from everybody in my family. I lived in Queens and had to commute to high school. So I'd wait up at 5 o'clock in the morning every day, take the Long Island Railroad to the subway. My parents always drove me to the railroad.

Q: How much did the school prepare you for the heavy competition of a life as a performer?

A: When you're in this business and you're dancing, yeah, you know that that's part of it. But at school, it was a really relaxed atmosphere. We were disciplined, definitely. There were rules, and you didn't step out of line. But between the dancers, everybody was very supportive of each other. It was a really, really nice place to learn and grow with the students and the teachers. I've taken classes in the city at certain schools where the competition is disgusting. Like you don't go there to take class, you go there to show off. When we were seniors and were all auditioned for parts, then it came out a little bit. But it's still wasn't too harsh.

I think that La Guardia definitely prepares you for real life after high school. They put you in audition situations, they bring in other choreographers in, they throw you into a lot of hard situations and let you deal with them. I learned a lot more in college as well, but if I didn't go to college and I just went right into auditioning, I would have been prepared.

Q: How close is the musical -- although it's entertainment, not a documentary -- to the experience of being at the school?

A: The characters in the show are aspiring actors, dancers, singers, people who love what they do. And that is the same feeling that you have at that school. When they start out as freshman, they're all just a bunch of talented young students who love what they do and inspire each other and love their art . . . No one judged you, so it was very easy to be yourself and just be an artist. It was a great place to express yourself and learn and grow.

Q: The musical is completely different from the film. Different songs, characters, story. What's the show trying to get across?

A: When you're watching it, you obviously get that it's a great show, that it's high-energy, that there are a lot of talented people up there. But also I think that we all are trying to inspire you, even if you're not in the arts, to go out and do what you want to do, no matter what it is.