Nine years later, the curtain still hasn’t fallen.
About 20 former students of Jane Addams High School for Academic Careers who performed in the school’s first musical in 2003 will once again be in the limelight, this time at the Bronx Museum of the Arts.
Artist David Katzenstein photographed the students when they got their first taste of theater in “Grease” – and then again at a reunion last May. An exhibit featuring his “before and after” portraits is on display at the museum through Jan. 6.
“Who ever thought that kid from around the way really wanted to do something with his life?” said Robert Wells, 27, laughing about his photos.
Katzenstein photographed the students on a whim when a friend and New York University grad, Jon Ross, got a grant to direct a musical at the school – which is now phasing out after grade scandals and poor performance.
“It became a major project about how, if you offer the arts in inner-city schools, it can have a great positive effect on the students,” said Katzenstein. “It set a course for the rest of their lives, from high school to now.”
He restaged the photos in the same spots nine years later. About a dozen of the 20 students came for the reunion.
Wells was a junior, shuttling between his parent’s homes in the Bronx and “running the streets” with the wrong crowd, when he was cast as Danny Zuko in “Grease.” His brother, Emanuel Byers, played the role of Kenickie.
“One night, we performed when the lights went out,” recalled Wells, now a father with a baby on the way.
“The whole auditorium went dark, and you could still hear us sing ‘We Go Together.’ We were all so young and trying to experience something, and it just so happened it turned into something as beautiful as it did.”
Since then, Wells served two tours in Iraq in the U.S. Navy and recently graduated from culinary school.
Samuel LeSane III, who laughed about his baggy white T-shirt and braids in his “before” photo as a sophomore, said performing in the show changed his life.
“I wasn’t even a character!” he laughed. “I was just in the background, dancing. Even nine years later, I’m still thinking, ‘how can I get back on stage and impact someone else’s life through art?'”
LeSane is currently studying criminology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice – where he also takes an improv theater class.
And there was Lucy Santana, a teen mom who brought her baby to rehearsals while she was one of the “Pink Ladies.”
“It was that part of my life that was full of excitement,” said Santana, now 27 with two daughters. “It makes me proud that my kids can see something in me, something to look up to. And maybe someday they’ll be excited to have their pictures up in museums.”
An official exhibit unveiling – which many of the former students plan to attend – will be held at the museum next Sunday.
clestch@nydailynews.com
