Play, loss intersect in new Rainbow Company production

The show must go on.

But sometimes that’s easier said than done, especially when, offstage, you’re grieving the loss of a treasured presence.

That’s the sad but undeniable lesson members of Las Vegas’ Rainbow Company Youth Theatre are learning as they prepare to debut their latest production, “Bridge to Terabithia,” Friday at the Charleston Heights Arts Center.

Based on Katherine Patterson’s award-winning children’s book, “Terabithia” focuses on the bonds between two elementary school classmates, lonely Jess Aaron (played by Zachary Krause) and new kid Leslie Burke (Sage Fernandez), who together imagine the magical title realm, where they reign as king and queen.

When an unexpected tragedy occurs, however, memories help those left behind carry on in the spirit of their departed friend.

Which is exactly what members of the Rainbow Company family have been doing since Feb. 5, when Kristopher L. Shepherd, who had spent two decades as a theater program specialist with the award-winning troupe, died suddenly at 49.

Although Rainbow Artistic Director Karen McKenney and Shepherd decided last year to include “Terabithia” in this season’s lineup, the timing of this production seems sadly appropriate, she agrees.

“Let me get my box of Kleenex,” McKenney says, pondering the “larger-than-life” Shepherd’s role in, and impact on, Rainbow Company.

“I worked with him for 20 years. I hired him. We’re all family here — he was my best friend,” she notes, describing Shepherd as “so naturally outgoing. He encouraged everyone to do their best.”

And director Brian Kral (who has written more than two dozen plays for Rainbow and other theaters) notes that “in many ways, Kris is partly responsible for me doing the show,” because Shepherd encouraged Kral to postpone his planned retirement so he could direct Rainbow’s third “Terabithia” production. (The company previously presented the play in its 1993-94 and 2004-05 seasons.)

Although “you don’t want to get too involved in personal emotions” during the initial stages of production, Kral says, the cast’s reactions to Shepherd’s death “eventually” will play a role in their performances.

Yet they already seem all too aware of the links between the play’s themes and real-life heartache they’ve experienced following Shepherd’s death.

“The (play’s) balance between the tragedy and the happiness it brings creates a big impact on the audience,” according to Fernandez, who’s 12.

Being in “Bridge to Terabithia” has helped 10-year-old Caroline Stanton — who plays Jesse’s younger sister May Belle — realize that “things aren’t always so happiness and sunshiny,” she says, noting “how something so loved and so appreciated” could disappear so suddenly.

Meredith Vital, 14, recalls one of the final times he worked with Shepherd, on a crew call, when Shepherd impersonated a comedic character he created: a “black market puppet-seller” who peddled his wares while warbling “Annie’s” never-say-die anthem “Tomorrow” in “a cheesy Russian accent.”

McKenney, hearing Vital’s memory, smiles.

“He did the worst accents,” she says of Shepherd, “but it was so good. There’s a lot of laughs in there” — and in Rainbow Company’s collective memory bank.

“I learned a lot of things from Kris,” Vital concludes, “but I also wanted to learn more.”

The company’s close ties have helped members cope with their collective loss, according to Sydny Hanson, 16.

“As an ensemble, we’ve created a safe place to talk,” she notes. “Not having a Kris to be there for me, realizing he’s not going to be there anymore — the rest of us have to step up. It’s a really hard change for us.”

Just how hard seems evident from the tears that well up, then spill out, as Stanton remembers the day Shepherd died. Sharing Stanton’s pain, Fernandez puts a reassuring arm around her friend and gives her shoulder a squeeze.

When Krause, 13, heard of Shepherd’s death after “a normal day” at school, “I really freaked out, almost to the point of shock,” he says.

Fernandez and her sister skipped their dance class that sad day, heeding their mother’s words: “ ‘You can cry as much as you want.’ It was just devastating.”

Yet, as Rainbow Company members prepare for rehearsal, they also sense Shepherd’s presence.

“I do still feel it, when I’m doing something that’s going to be hard. I wonder, ‘Would he approve this?’ ” Stanton explains. “Basically, he’s become my conscience.”

But there’s no time to wonder as Kral calls the company together for a rehearsal — which includes a journey, via an onstage rope swing, to the magical land of Terabithia — and a make-believe battle with goblins.

Just because it’s make-believe, however, doesn’t mean it’s not real.

As Kral notes, “Terabithia” explores “the importance of using your imagination to create something that’s beautiful.”

Or, as Stanton says, showing “you can make the world a better place, one person at a time.”

Even when one special person isn’t there anymore. Or perhaps he is.

“I hope his spirit can still just sense us,” Fernandez says, “achieving what he wanted us to do.”

Read more stories from Carol Cling at reviewjournal.com. Contact her at ccling@reviewjournal.com and follow @CarolSCling on Twitter.