Youth theater production rises from the ashes of Los Angeles fires

Voice of America

06-03-2025

The day after her house burned down, Lara Ganz sent a group message to the youth theater troupe she runs: They would not let the Los Angeles firestorm stop their upcoming show.
"So many of our castmates have lost everything," wrote Ganz, the director of youth theater at a beloved playhouse in the Pacific Palisades. "We will continue with rehearsals. I am confident we will find a stage."
The devastating Jan. 7 fire gutted every inch of the 125-seat Pierson Playhouse, from the basement to the roof, leaving behind only a mangled steel skeleton. Many of the young actors watched it burn on live TV. About half of the show's 45 cast members, aged 8 to 17, lost their homes or can't yet return because of severe damage. Many also lost their schools to the fire.
But the show did go on. A two-week run of the musical Crazy for You opened last weekend, in a nearby school auditorium, marking a triumphant return to the stage for a community determined to see its theater rise from the ashes. Five more shows are scheduled for this weekend.
The experience lifted the young performers of Theatre Palisades Youth from an unfathomable low point, teaching them the healing power of art in the face of disaster.
"The first time I felt happy after the fire was when I walked into that first rehearsal," said Callum Ganz, 17, the director's son, who plays a tap-dancing cowboy in the show. "When I'm singing or dancing, I forget about everything else. I don't think about the fire. All I feel is happiness."
"It's always a shock," he said, "when it comes back to me and I remember, 'Oh, right. My house is gone.'"
More than 6,800 homes and other structures were flattened in the Palisades fire. Places of worship, shops and schools were destroyed, along with favorite student hangouts downtown — the local skate shop, a pizza place, the Yogurt Shoppe, where the young performers would walk after shows for a celebratory treat.
The idea of rebuilding is still a distant dream. The fire destroyed the theater's performance space and everything else — hundreds of costumes and shoes in the downstairs wardrobe department, vintage and new props, their piano and other musical instruments, lights and sound equipment.
Parents took to social media, posting pleas for donations. They were met with an outpouring of generosity from the artistic community, stretching from Hollywood to Broadway.
Emmy-award winning hairstylist Joy Zapata saw one of the posts, emailed the mother who wrote it to make sure it wasn't a scam, and then put out a call to friends in the business.
"I have done horror films with 100 extras running down the Pacific Coast Highway. But this time, the story was real, and it blew me away," Zapata said. She held a tutorial for the cast during dress rehearsals and then returned for opening night with a team of seven Hollywood hair and makeup artists.
"I wanted these kids to walk away feeling beautiful," Zapata said, as she curled and sprayed the hair of showgirls into upswept buns. Cowgirls got braided pigtails.
A few weeks earlier, Broadway actress Kerry Butler, a Tony-nominated star of Beetlejuice, had invited the kids to sing with her during a concert in Orange County, south of Los Angeles. Then, she spent a day leading them in a master class on character development and vocal technique.
"I will never forget my time with them," Butler wrote on Instagram. "I met people who lost their homes, schools. But they told me when they heard the theatre was gone — that was when they felt the deepest loss."
The group also received wireless mics from Guitar Center and costumes from neighboring schools. The Paul Revere Charter Middle School, for now, has become the troupe's home.
"Home" is a charged word in a community where so many have lost theirs. Yet for these young actors and their families, it fits.
"I'm learning that a home is not a physical thing. It's the people," said Scarlett Shelton, a 16-year-old from nearby Culver City who has been part of the theater since middle school.
It's the type of small-town playhouse that no longer exists in many parts of the country. Kids join young and stay until high school, often leaving with dreams of Broadway. About half of the kids in the cast lived nearby in Pacific Palisades, and the rest come from all over the Los Angeles area.
On opening night in a new venue, much of the pre-show jitters and rituals felt the same. The big kids helped calm the nerves of "the littles," as the young actors are affectionately called. Before the show, the entire cast circled up behind the curtain and took turns giving inspirational pep talks. "Knock their socks off!" said one child. Another stepped up to say: "Everyone, dance the night away!"
Putting on the show was not the primary goal when Ganz sent out her group text, as her own family evacuated and then learned their home was gone.
"That day of the fires, her whole life was destroyed in a few hours. But it wasn't, 'Woe is me, I lost everything,'" said choreographer Rebecca Barragan. "She said: 'We need to have rehearsal right away and get these kids back on their feet. And let them know that life isn't over.'"
The original cast of 58 kids dwindled to 45, as families scattered to new homes. Many are mired in a post-wildfire bureaucracy of insurance and government assistance and still figuring out where to go next.
"To be with the other kids and create something and have a purpose has been the most healing thing for all of us," said Wendy Levine, whose sixth grader, Tyler, is in the show.
"It's been a light in the darkness," said her husband, Eric Levine. The family had just finished remodeling their home and was unpacking boxes mid-morning Jan. 7, when they were ordered to evacuate. They learned that night the home was gone.
Ironically, Crazy for You is about a small-town theater struggling to survive, set to the music of George and Ira Gershwin. As the story goes, the townsfolk are energized by coming together to create a show after their hometown is hit with hard times.
That's what real life felt like these past few weeks, said Sebastian Florido, 14, who plays the lead character and loved getting to perform one number in particular — I Can't Be Bothered Now, which is about the power of song and dance to chase away bad news.
"One of the lines is, 'I'm dancing and I can't be bothered now,'" the teen said. "It's really relatable. All this bad stuff was happening, but I'm tap dancing with my best friends. It was like a getaway to a little paradise."