'Miss Saigon'

By SASHA PAULSEN
Register Features Editor

Since the reopening of the District Auditorium in 2004, Vintage and Napa high schools have resumed the tradition of presenting a musical for the community, each school in alternate years. And the community has responded by routinely selling out the house for the shows.

With good reason: People who see the musicals presented by these students for the first time invariably come away bowled over by the talent, the power and the polish of these productions.

This year promises to be no different as Vintage High school stages “Miss Saigon,” the love story set in the final days and the aftermath of the war in Vietnam. The show opens Feb. 7 and continues for two weekends. There is also a special performance Tuesday, Feb.12 at 6 p.m.

Mark Teeters directs the Vintage production, presented by the Concert Choir, which has been studying the music since last fall. Members of the choir and the Vintage dance program make up the 80-some members of the cast of “Miss Saigon,” which was written by Claude-Michel Schönberg, Alain Boublil and Richard Maltby, Jr., the same team that created “Les Miserables,” which Vintage students performed in 2006. Vintage dance teacher Lisa Sullivan is choreographer for the production.

The plot is based on “Madame Butterfly,” Puccini’s tragic opera about a Japanese woman who is abandoned by her American lover but waits faithfully for him to return. In this version the lovers are Kim, a young Vietnamese woman working as a “bar girl” in the Dreamland Club, and Chris, a Marine, who promises to take her with him as Saigon is being evacuated. Although they are separated and Chris leaves without her, Kim believes he will return for her and their son. The story takes place in Saigon and Bangkok from 1975 to 1978.

The cast is headed by Jessica Adlawan in the role of Kim, and Jamie Forsberg as Chris. German exchange student Raoul Stiehler portrays “the Engineer,” owner of the Dreamland Club. Tom Orlando is Chris’s friend, John, who later leads a campaign in the United States to help children of American servicemen left behind in Vietnam, and Devon Hadsell portrays Chris’s American wife. Jonie Delfin as Gigi, Kai Hoffman as Thuy, Kim’s Vietnamese fiancé, round out the lead roles.

The music of Miss Saigon includes “The Heat Is On in Saigon,” “The Movie in My Mind,” “Why, God, Why?,” “Sun and Moon,” “The Last Night of the World,” “I Still Believe,” “I’d Give My Life for You,” “Bui-Doi” and “The American Dream.”

Miss Saigon will be presented in six evening performances on February 7, 8, 9, 14, 15, and 16 at 7 p.m.; a Tuesday evening performance on February 12 at 6 p.m.; and a Sunday afternoon matinee on February 10 at 2 p.m. Tickets, at $15 each, are available by calling the Vintage High School Music Office at 707-299-2520. Tickets for the show on February 12 are $8.

‘Miss Saigon’

Napa District Auditorium

Feb. 7, 8, 9 14,15 16, 7 p.m.

Feb. 10, 2 p.m.

Feb. 12, 6 p.m.

Tickets: $15, ($8 for Feb. 12)

Reservations: 299-2520

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