The two groups of young people at Whole Children in Hadley eyed each other with mutual dislike and suspicion — or their best imitation of it.
“At the count of three, you’re going to show me your angry mood and look, OK?” said Matt Meers as he observed the teens and young adults. “Ready now? One, two, three — and we hold it!”
For a moment the teens glowered at each other with exaggerated frowns and furrowed brows; hands were clenched into fists here and there. Then Meers shouted “Awesome!” and a wave of applause and cheers whipped around the room.
There was a good reason for all the excitement. In the small gymnasium of Whole Children, a Hadley organization that provides enrichment programs for children and young people with special needs, it was rehearsal time for “West Side of the Bridge,” a short play based partly on the 1957 Broadway play and 1961 film “West Side Story,” which will be staged at Smith College on Friday and Saturday — and which will feature more than 20 performers from the Hadley program, with another 15 in a chorus.
This is the fifth year that Whole Children has organized a theater production for its students. It’s the culmination of an annual “Theater Studio” class that begins in the fall and runs through the winter. Aside from helping teens work on theater skills and giving them a chance to act and sing onstage, the course is focused on team building and social skills.
“It’s a popular class,” said Meers, the energetic director and writer of ‘West Side of the Bridge’ and the lead instructor of the theater class since its inception. “We started with 10 students, and this year we have over 20, which does make it a little more challenging in terms of putting on a production. It’s the biggest group I’ve worked with.”
“West Side of the Bridge” is loosely based on “West Side Story” and “Grease” and is also, as Meers puts it, “smooshed together” with various pieces the actors have come up with themselves.
“We’ve got kind of a ’50s theme going, which is what everyone was interested in last fall when we started talking about what we wanted to do for our next show.”
The play includes some of the characters from the two other productions, like Tony and Maria from “West Side Story,” but the setting is here in the Valley, with the bridge in question being the Calvin Coolidge Memorial Bridge that spans the Connecticut River on Route 9.
The basic plot: In the 1950s, Amherst and Northampton teens planned a dance contest, but a spy from Amherst stole some of the best moves from Northampton ahead of time to enable Amherst to win the competition. There’s been bad blood between the towns ever since. Now a new generation of teens from both communities wants to come together for a dance contest, but they have to deal with 50-plus years of suspicion to do so.
Meers and Whole Children teachers say there are specific challenges in putting together a show with special-needs students. Keeping everyone focused can be part of it — the show will run about 40 minutes — and some cast members are shy or not that verbal, or can be difficult to understand. The key, Meers said, is being flexible and finding what works for each person.
“The ultimate goal is to give everyone a chance to shine,” he noted. “Probably the biggest challenge for me is trying to make that happen. How do I write a scene that will set them up for success?”
Yet the theater program by itself helps in trying to reach that goal, staff say.
Teacher Brian Melanson notes that teens in the program, who also take classes at area schools, may be in theater productions elsewhere, yet they rarely have an opportunity to do much more than, say, sing in the chorus. “Here they get to do a lot more,” he said.
And, adds teacher Chris Harper, they also get to put together something that’s bigger than themselves: “It’s awesome the way they help each other.”
Indeed, Meers says one new student he’s worked with this year, Lucie Pasche, is shy and hasn’t always been able to say her lines; she might need to have someone join her on stage to read her lines for her. But Meers said he’s pleased by the way others in the cast have encouraged her and tried to keep her engaged if she seems to be withdrawing from the group.
Meers also has to work with teens who, like teens everywhere, might flirt yet are still developing social skills and a sense of social boundaries. It can make for tricky moments; in one rehearsal, Cameron Rousseau, 17, and Tianna Dwinell, 15, playing the star-crossed lovers Tony and Maria, looked a bit red-faced and bashful about their stage romance.
“I don’t use stage directions,” said Meers, who hasn’t asked Rousseau and Dwinell to kiss, hug, hold hands or do anything specific. “I like things to be organic, and in this case we’ll see what they feel comfortable doing.”
That’s in keeping with the vision of Whole Children, founded in 2004 by parents of special-needs children to give them after-school and weekend activities not available elsewhere. Aside from theater, courses are offered in outdoor adventure, art, dance, music, woodworking and other areas — all geared, as the group’s website puts it, to the idea that if given the opportunity, “our children can surpass even our own expectations, and the more doors that are open to them, the more they may discover the worlds that await their success.”
During a recent rehearsal, the cast joined Meers in Whole Children’s gym to work on a scene modeled on one from “West Side Story.” Two columns of men — the Blue Devils of Northampton and the Hurricanes of Amherst — marched toward the gym center, each following a different line of blue tape on the floor, and slowly encircled a group of women.
Meers said to Aidan O’Donoghue, 19, leading the Blue Devil contingent, “Aidan, you want to slow it down a little bit and start from further back.” The two groups ran through the moves a few more times, and Meers nodded his head in satisfaction.
Rousseau, of Granby, quickly started clapping. “Yes!” he cried as others joined in.
Touching an iPad next to him, Meers then queued up the music to the jazzy “Cool” from “West Side Story,” and the cast members snapped their fingers and bopped gently in place, with some pretending to wipe sweat from their faces, the lyrics urging them to “Stay cool, boy.”
As part of the scene, O’Donoghue, playing Riff, the leader of the Blue Devils, and Cade Holden, 19, playing Bernardo, the ‘Canes’ leader, accidently brushed each other from behind — then quickly whirled to face each other, fists cocked.
“I get such a laugh from that scene,” said Aidan’s mother, Valle Dwight, the communications director for Whole Children. “Cade and Aidan have been best friends for years.”
Meers also had the cast sing some new lyrics he’d written to the tune of another “West Side Story” song, “America,” with the Amherst and Northampton contingents mocking each other’s towns in a call and response (Devils: “I like the city of NOHO”; Canes: “Getting through there can be so slow”). Laughter echoed around the room when it was over.
Then Meers huddled with the female cast members as they worked on another “West Side Story” tune they were just learning, “I Feel Pretty.” It was a quick number, with one section where the lyrics almost spilled into each other. After singing along, Meers had the cast members try it on their own. Afterward, he said “OK, raise your hand if you’re freaking out now.”
“It’s a lot,” said Letitia Ward, of Northampton. “And it’s hard.”
“And this room feels so small,” offered Danielle Martin, of Chicopee.
Meers advised everyone to concentrate simply on learning the lyrics to the new songs in the week before the next rehearsal — and he reminded them the aim of the show was to have fun.
“I’ll be sitting in the front row and I’ll be singing along with you,” he said of the March 18-19 shows. “And if you forget a line, but you make a face like you’re having a good time, the audience won’t care. If you make a face like, ‘Oh, crud,’ the audience is going to go ‘Hmmmm.’ ”
The rehearsal ended on an upbeat note when the cast did some synchronized dancing to “Born to Hand Jive” from “Grease.” As high-fives and hugs were exchanged at the end of the song, Ward likely spoke for many when she said, “I like this.”
Steve Pfarrer can be reached at spfarrer@gazettenet.com.
“West Side of the Bridge” will be presented Friday at 7 p.m. and Saturday at 2 p.m. at the Hallie Flanagan Theater at Smith College, 122 Green St. in Northampton. To purchase tickets, visit wholechildren.org.