Young actors easily adapt to joy of ‘Bye Bye Birdie’ at Winchester Cultural Center

How do you teach a troupe of young actors about the bizarre, innocent, retro madness that was the height of the rock 'n' roll era, circa the late '50s and early '60s?

With movies, of course. And in the case of the Winchester Players' production of "Bye Bye Birdie," the primary source material was the 1963 movie adaptation of the 1961 musical that brought teenagers and capri pants to Broadway long before the guys from "Grease" ever slapped on their first handful of pomade.

The Winchester Players' production of "Bye Bye Birdie," opens today and runs through Saturday at Winchester Cultural Center, 3130 S. McLeod Drive.

It will be paired with "This is How We Roll: A Rock and Roll Story," a piece written by director Susan Swanson that serves as a sort of prelude to the main musical event.

The production features a cast ranging in age from 10 to 18. "The first part of the show is the younger kids," Swanson says. "We have some (age) 5 to 10 and, of course, we can't put them in 'Bye Bye Birdie.' "

"So, we wrote a little minimusical about the house down the street," she said, where kids are spying on the family featured in "Bye Bye Birdie" right before the latter play's Ed Sullivan moment.

Then comes the company's version of "Bye Bye Birdie," which Swanson calls "more of a revue. The whole show runs about 90 minutes and never stops."

To introduce the young cast to a play -- and to a phenomenon -- way before their time, Swanson says choreographer Christopher Swanson showed them the filmed adaptation of the play, which starred Ann-Margret and Dick Van Dyke.

"He talked about the period, giving a little history lesson about what was going on in that time," she notes.

The role of wriggly rocker Conrad Birdie is played by two actors, Alex Farrar, 17, and Kip Canyon, 19, each of whom offers a slightly different take on the character.

Canyon describes his Birdie as "more of the Elvis type." (Conrad Birdie was, in fact, assumed by audiences then and now to be a parody of Elvis Presley and the hoopla Elvis generated in his prime.)

Canyon knew a bit about Elvis -- as he puts it, the "common knowledge" sorts of things -- but doesn't claim to have known much more beyond that. He prepared for the role by watching Elvis movies, trying to "capture his aura and how he moves."

Along the way, Canyon developed an appreciation of Elvis. It was, he says, "the way he carried himself onstage, and just his personality. When he comes onstage, he owns it and just lets loose.

"That's why people love him, because he wasn't afraid to just let loose and be himself and just rock the world."

But, Canyon adds, "I'm not trying to be Elvis. I'm using him as a model and incorporate what I choose to incorporate in terms of his personality and his swagger and put that into Birdie."

In rehearsing the prelude piece with the company's youngest actors, Swanson was surprised to discover that the era's music wasn't as alien to them as she might have expected.

"During the first part of the show, they do things like 'Blue Suede Shoes' and 'Devil with a Blue Dress' and all kinds of rock and roll songs," she says.

"They loved it. They knew the music from 'Bye Bye Birdie,' of course, but as I turned on 'Devil with a Blue Dress,' all the kids started singing it. I said, 'Where do you know this song from?' They said: 'We don't know. We just know it.' "

The cast has been rehearsing for about four months. During that time, Swanson has noticed that the, perhaps, more innocent nature of the era seems to have rubbed off on them.

"They're being more polite to each other, especially the teenagers," she says, "because they enjoy that time and that innocence."

Contact reporter John Przybys at jprzybys@review journal.com or 702-383-0280.