Vintage students recreate the heartbreak of war in 'Miss Saigon’'

By SASHA PAULSEN
Register Features Editor

Two years ago, Vintage High School students dazzled Napa audiences with their performance of “Les Miserables.” Now students are mining both experience and imagination to recreate the chaotic world of Southeast Asia in the 1970s as they prepare their upcoming musical, “Miss Saigon.”

Led by Director of Choral Activities Mark Teeters, the crew of nearly 80 singers, dancers, actors and student technical crew are devoting hours to polishing the show, which opens Feb. 7 at the District Auditorium.  

The award-winning musical, with music by Claude-Michel Schönberg and lyrics by Alain Boublil and Richard Maltby, Jr., is loosely based on the Puccini opera “Madame Butterfly,” the story of an Asian woman, abandoned by her American lover. In “Miss Saigon,” it’s a young Marine, Chris, who is evacuated from Saigon as the city is falling to the Viet Cong and leaves behind his pregnant girlfriend, Kim, a Vietnamese bar girl in the Dreamland Club. She, like the tragic Madame Butterfly, waits for him to return.

“None of us have been through anything like that,” said Tom Orlando, who plays Chris’ friend, John, who later leads a campaign in the United States to help children of American servicemen left behind in Vietnam. “We have to find someone inside us that we’ve never been … We don’t want to make a mockery out of what someone did.”

Orlando, whose uncle was a Marine killed in Vietnam, is hoping also to pursue a career in the Marines.

“We know there are a lot of people who will be watching who were alive during that time,” said Devon Hadsell, who plays the role of Chris’ American wife. “I hope we’ll be able to portray the intensity of that time for Vietnam vets.”

Other students have been able to turn to family experiences to try to understand what it was like to live through the war in Vietnam. “My father was a sniper,” said Mimi Nguyen, who plays the role of another bar girl named Mimi. Her family later escaped through the Philipines and came to the U.S.

The cast is headed by Jessica Adlawan in the role of Kim, and Jamie Forsberg as Chris.

“It’s hard to connect with this role,” Adlawan said. “I have to go beyond my beliefs.”

Discussing his complex character Chris, Forsberg said, “It turns out he had to make a lot of decisions that affected a lot of people.”

“It’s been difficult,” said Kai Hoffman, who plays Thuy, the Vietnamese man who is betrothed to Kim. “You have to feel it somewhere, to find something to connect to. It’s a great acting challenge.”

Also in the cast is exchange student Raoul Stiehler, who portrays the owner of the Dreamland club. “They are calling me ‘the engineer’” explained Stiehler, who has also performed in musicals in his native Germany — including he noted, a version of “West Side Story” performed in German.

Teeters is confident his students, who have been working on the music since fall in his Concert Choir class, are up to the challenge. “They are a talented group,” he said.

“Miss Saigon” will be presented Feb. 7, 8, 9, 14, 15, and 16 at 7 p.m.; Feb. 12 at 6 p.m.; Feb. 10 at 2 p.m.  Tickets, at

$15 each, are available by calling the Vintage High School Music Office at 299-2520. Tickets for  the Feb. 12  show are $8.

“Miss Saigon”

Feb. 7,8, 9, 15, 16, 7 p.m.

Feb. 10, 2 p.m., Feb.12, 6 p.m.

District Auditorium

Tickets, $15

Call 299-2520

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