According to director Susan Davis, an unexpected medical emergency sent one of her cast to the Emergency Room at the Queen just before the Friday night performance of “Stage  Door” at Vintage High School, but in the true trouper spirit Chelsea Page stepped in to play the role of Linda Shaw, and the show went on.

Coincidentally, the play, by Edna Ferber and George S. Kaufman, is all about the ups and downs of young actresses trying to make it in the theater world of New York in the 1930s.

Thirty-three actors, and a multitude of support staff, presented a spirited tale set in a time when Hollywood was a threatening upstart to the grand Broadway tradition.

The play is set in the Footlights Club, a boarding house run by a former actress Mrs. Orcutt (Lindsey Evans) with help from Mattie and Frank (Ashley Zaragoza and Luis Reyes). The tenants are a varied mix of actresses, all pounding the pavement, haunting agents and producers and waiting for a break. The impressive set (with portraits of Sarah Bernhardt and Shakespeare) and the fine period costumes of the young women who whisk in and out of the doors of the Footlight Club anchor the play in another time, but otherwise, the stories of both heartbreak and triumph doubtlessly ring true today. Alycia Smith, Sasha Hazelton, Alyssa Ciapponi, Jessie Bauer, Audrianna Hernandez, Jess Cuffe, Cieara Blue, Alex Trochet, Christina Mustain, Jessica Borem, Olivia Salinas, Sarah Villata, Sarah Anderson, Amelia Fiske, Giovannie Robledo, Sam Poyser, Leah Ewald, Amanda Hennagin and Chelsea Page all turn in fine performances as the current tenants, who are beset with challenges, reaching for a dream and an occasional good date and continually conniving to meet a producer or director. Collectively they are an engaging lot. One particular standout is Christina Mustain as the mysterious Kaye Hamilton, whose own story illuminates the tragic side of all these dreams, while Sasha Hazelton and Alyssa Ciapponi provide a great comic touch as Big and Little Mary.

Spotlighted are two aspiring actresses, Jean Maitland (Olivia Salinas) and Terry Randall (Leah Ewald). Terry is the daughter of an actress whose career ended when she got sick on a tour and the call went out “Is there a doctor in the house?” — and she married the doctor, portrayed by Buddy Brazer. Terry steadfastly holds true to the idea that an actress belongs on stage and refuses to make the move to Hollywood, despite a successful screen test and  promising offers. The ambitious Jean, on the other hand, jumps at an offer and leaves the Footlight Club. Both Salinas and Ewald are outstanding in their roles, as is Tim Bacon, as the passionate, rising playwright Keith Burgess, who is also seduced away to Hollywood. He wins fame, fortune and a place in the California sun— but loses his girl, Terry.

 Jean returns a film star, complete with platinum hair, furs and a royal retinue, while the much more talented Terry is reduced to working in shop and looking for parts on her brief lunch hour. Is it fair? Oddly, the man who encourages Terry to stay the course is a Hollywood producer David Kingsley (Carlos Martinez).

Rounding out this large, energetic cast are Will Luippold, Jeremy Bomar, Matt Clark, Chris Bacon. Alta Heights Elementary School student Forrest Blue, an aspiring actor himself, made an appearance on the high school stage as the younger brother of one actress; he comes to New York to visit her with his mother, played by Charlene Aoki. Jess Cuffe made an additional amusing appearance as Adolph Gretzl, the president of Globe Pictures, who wakes Terry up in the middle of the night, asks her  to read lines, and peremptorily pronounces her a failure as an actress. But is she? Somehow all comes right in a, well, a true Hollywood ending.

Ciera Blue also serves as stage manager, assisted by Jeremy Bomar and Jesse Boru. Charlie Preset manages the lights, while Shelby Malone is in charge of sound.

“Stage Door” is a monumental undertaking, but it sparkles with wit and fun and feeling. The final performances are at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday at the Vintage High School Little Theater, 1375 Trower Ave. Tickets are $10 for adults and $5 for students. Those who bring two cans of food or two packages of toiletries to be donated to the Food Bank and Adopt-a-Families will receive a $1 discount. For more information, call 253-3626.