Talent Machine

A sure sign that summer has arrived is the Talent Machine Co. rehearsing for two shows - one for ages 5 to 14 and another for ages 14 and older. Bobbi Smith started the tradition of showcasing talented youngsters in 1987 and expanded her vision until her death in 2001. The legendary choreographer presented three shows a year - two in the summer and one for the Christmas holiday season. Known for their high energy, Talent Machine shows set a benchmark for youth productions. Bobbi's sister, choreographer Vicki Smith, and daughter Lea Capps, TM's executive director, continue to keep her dream alive.

With a cast of teenagers who actually look like they could have attended Rydell High, the Talent Machine opens its production of the musical Grease tonight at St. John's College Key Auditorium in Annapolis. A frequent complaint heard at many performances of the musical standby is that 20- and 30-something actors don't seem believable as 1950s high school students. That won't be the case with the Talent Machine, formed about 20 years ago by Bobbi Smith to help young people develop their dancing and singing talents and to give them a performance vehicle.

The Talent Machine is purring along 42nd Street this weekend. The company's younger cast, ranging in age from 4-year-old Emme Sayers (who studies ballet, tap and jazz) to 14-year-old veterans, opened its super-charged show last weekend with performances continuing tonight, tomorrow and Sunday at St. John's College Key Auditorium. Next month will feature older children in Grease, opening Aug. 4 and running through Aug. 13. The Talent Machine was formed about 20 years ago by dynamic director-choreographer and teacher Bobbi Smith to develop young peoples' dancing and singing talents and provide a performance vehicle for them - something she did for hundreds during her lifetime.

For the last 18 years, the Talent Machine has rolled into Annapolis every July to brighten the summer entertainment scene. The Talent Machine - the show that gave birth to the company of the same name to provide a performance vehicle for young people - is now being fine-tuned to roll down 42nd Street for a two-weekend run July 14 to 16 and July 20 to 23 in Key Auditorium at St. John's College in Annapolis. The late Bobbi Smith, who spun magic for hundreds of children by teaching them to reach beyond their limits and dance like pros, created the show and Talent Machine Company in 1987.

Talent Machine show The Talent Machine Company will present two summer shows. The Talent Machine, an original musical story of children on a journey of self-discovery, runs weekends through July 24. Children of Eden is a musical about conflict between parents and children. Performed by teens, Children of Eden will be presented Aug. 5 to 7 and Aug. 12 to 14, with an additional show Aug. 11. General admission tickets are $12; $10 for children 7 and younger. All shows are at St. John's College Key Auditorium.

Merely Players' production of the 1970s stage and screen mega-hit Grease features a teenage cast - an asset most professional shows lack. Again this weekend, Chesapeake Arts Center's Main Theater stage will be filled with lively high school students. Veteran director Kevin Wheatley has assembled an excellent cast headed by teens with wide performing experience gained at such local training grounds as the Children's Theatre of Annapolis and Talent Machine. Written by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey, Grease re-creates the 1950s at Rydell High School where Danny Zuko returns from a summer romance with Sandy Dumbrowski to find her now enrolled at his school.

When director-choreographer Bobbi Smith's Talent Machine theater troupe began clicking on all cylinders a decade or so ago, her shows were notable for their energy, overall pizazz and depth of talent. "Catch the energy" was Smith's mantra, and her young charges bought into it wholeheartedly. Intensity never flagged, with youngsters in the third row downstage right smiling and selling their steps as determinedly as the featured kids hoofing front row and center. For sheer glamour, no one in these parts could top a vintage Smith show.

Nobody is going to mistake Broadway's version of cartoonist Al Capp's comic strip Li'l Abner for a classic of the American musical stage. But the characters from Dogpatch, Capp's hillbilly hamlet, are as bright and fun as the show's tuneful 1950s score. When Abner, his ever-loyal Daisy Mae, Mammy and Pappy Yokum, the singing clergyman Marryin' Sam and the rest of the Dogpatchers come together to stomp with high kickin' abandon, the results can be mighty pleasin' indeed. That is assuredly the case at Key Auditorium on the campus of St. John's College in Annapolis, where the Talent Machine has revved into high gear under the direction of Nicole Roblyer and choreographer Vicki Smith.

It's July in Annapolis and the summer theater season is about to rev into high gear, powered in no small measure by the Talent Machine Company - founded by director, choreographer and showbiz dynamo Bobbi Smith, who died in 2001. Talented junior thespians appear in a pair of productions each summer, one populated by the troupe's younger members, the other by the gifted performers who attend area high schools. This year, the younger set takes the stage first at Key Auditorium on the campus of St. John's College for Li'l Abner, the 1950s musical that brought cartoonist Al Capp's daffy and delightful denizens of Dogpatch to Broadway and, later, the silver screen.

We're approaching the dog days of August, my air conditioning isn't working properly and, still, I'm spending a lot of time whistling happily. What I've been whistling are songs from two of the wonderful musicals crafted by lyricist Alan Jay Lerner and composer Frederick Loewe, whose works are de rigueur from one end of the Annapolis Historic District to the other. At Summer Garden Theatre across from the City Dock, Professor Henry Higgins is busily at work elevating the horrific speech patterns of Eliza Doolittle in the classic My Fair Lady.