LOS ANGELES — Last December, Sutton Foster graced the stage of the Ahmanson in Once Upon a Mattress and 13-year-old Jolie Simmons saw the show — twice.
“I never would have thought that, like, a few months later, I would be performing here,” said Simmons.
She never would have predicted a lot of things that happened between then and now.
Simmons and her four siblings lost their home in the Eaton Fire. She also lost her school, Eliot Arts Magnet, including the theater where they were planning to perform.
For “Shrek Jr.,” Simmons had been cast as Princess Fiona, a role originated on Broadway by Foster. She vividly remembers the first day of rehearsal.
“It was actually the day of our first table read,” she recalled. “We were reading through lines and then that was the night that the fire happened.”
There are just over 50 students from Eliot Arts and Altadena Arts Magnet in the “Shrek Jr.” cast and roughly 40% of them lost their homes in the fire. Which is why director Mollie Lief said it was so important for the show to go on.
“I think for a lot of kids, theater is a second home,” she explained.
Although they too were mourning, like so much of the community, she said she and choreographer Billy Rugh immediately started making plans — big plans.
“They’ve had so much taken away from them,” Rugh said. “This is one thing we can help make sure they don’t lose.”
“We wanted to give these kids the world,” Lief echoed. “They lost their town, their school, and most of them their homes, or were displaced from their homes. So we… were just thinking like ogre-sized big dreams.”
And the Ahmanson is big, 2,100 seats big and artistic director Snehal Desai said Center Theatre Group was seeking big ways to help.
“At CTG, we’ve been trying to find a way to support as much as possible,” he explained. “We thought, well, is there a way for them to, you know, finish the show, to get it up and get it up on one of… LA’s biggest stages.”
They welcomed the kids with open arms, even creating quiet spaces for students who are neurodivergent or might find the huge donated professional sets and bright lights overwhelming.
In addition to giving this production a home, CTG has opened its doors to other displaced artists and nonprofits in need of office or rehearsal space. In the immediate days after the fire, they sent teaching artists into affected communities to work with displaced students at emergency day camps.
Desai said “Shrek” has never been performed at the Ahmanson before and he thinks it’s the perfect show for the moment since the story begins with all the fairy tale characters being displaced from their homes.
“Yes, you can be displaced. You can have to find a home somewhere else. And home is about place, but it’s really about the people,” he said. “And I think that’s the message of the story that really resonates right now for all of us.”
As for Simmons, she’s soaking up the chance to not just sing on the storied stage but tap in her idol’s footsteps.
“Even just being backstage, I was like, ‘Oh, Sutton was here one time. I touched something that Sutton probably touched before,’” she gushed, looking at a photo of the actor she calls her queen.
She said the fire still sometimes feels like a terrible dream, but rehearsing for “Shrek Jr.” has been the bright spot in a dark few months.
“Just being able to go somewhere where people are comforting,” Simmons explained. “And like love me and won’t judge, just like, makes me feel better.”
A reminder that while life may not always be a fairy tale, with support and friendship and community, it’s still a big bright beautiful world.
