FL MORRIS / FMORRIS@STARBULLETIN.COM Samuel Hesch, left, plays Chris, Renee Hartenstein plays Ellen, and Shawna Masuda, right and below, stars as Kim in the Army Theatre Production of "Miss Saigon."

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‘Kim’ studies
for the stage

An Aiea High senior
turns to research to help her
portray a love-struck bar girl

Shawna Masuda was determined to get a role -- any role -- in Army Community Theatre's production of "Miss Saigon." She didn't expect to be starring as Kim.

"There were a lot (of people), and they were all talented ... and here was I, a little girl with no name," explained Masuda during a recent lunch at Dixie Grill Aiea.

'Miss Saigon' Presented by Army Community Theatre: Place: Richardson Theatre, Fort Shafter When: Opens 7:30 p.m. Thursday; continues 7:30 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays through March 12 Tickets: $14 to $25; group discounts available Call: 438-4480 or www.squareone.org/ACT

"It's such a huge show, and it hasn't been done (as community theater), and to be a part of it, even in the ensemble, is really big. I had the whole show memorized months before -- I went online and downloaded the whole script (and) listened to the orchestra CD -- so I didn't need the book (at the audition), and I could concentrate more on the acting of it and feeling it. And they said I looked the part."

"Miss Saigon" opens Thursday with Joey Caldarone as the cynical Engineer, Samuel Hesch as Chris, the American GI Kim falls in love with, Keoki Kerr as Chris's friend John, and Jay Flores as Kim's Vietnamese suitor, Thuy.

A few more questions reveal that this self-described "little girl" has quite a rŽsumŽ, even though this is the first time she'll be seen in a major community theater role. In addition to "a few high school shows," Masuda's credits include "The Wizard of Oz," "Peter Pan" and "Jesus Christ Superstar" at Diamond Head Theatre, and "Copacabana" at Manoa Valley Theatre last spring.

Theater is her passion and is also her No. 1 motivation for doing well in her studies.

"My family tries to limit me to three or four shows a year. Sometimes it's more, but if my grades start going down, my parents will pull me out of a show or tell me I can't do the next one. I have student council, too, which is time-consuming, but performing is what I live for."

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FL MORRIS / FMORRIS@STARBULLETIN.COM In the background is Jay Flores, who plays Kim's Viet Cong boyfriend Thuy.

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THE 18-year-old Aiea High School senior can count her blessings that she's not drawing on personal experience in creating the character of Kim, a teenage bar girl/prostitute, who falls in love with a well-intentioned American soldier shortly before Saigon falls to the North Vietnamese in 1975.

"The hardest part is playing deeply in love because I haven't been," she says. She's never worked in a bar or been a single parent, either, so she talked with her father, a Vietnam veteran (Airborne), who shared some of his wartime experiences and gave her a soldier's perspective of the conflict. Her mother explained the unique feelings and emotions that come from giving birth and raising a child.

"(My father) showed me his photo album, and I've seen pictures of the real 'Kims' and 'Gigis' (bar girls) and their ages were actually like 13 and 14, and I look at my mother's experiences -- her loves and losses -- and my sisters'. They try to explain to me what it feels like (to be in love). I am the youngest child, so I really haven't been around any babies, but I'm working at looking more motherly (onstage)."

On the other hand, Masuda says, she's playing someone who is still so naive that "she falls in love with the first guy who shows her care and everything, and all the love that she felt for him is put into her child. I can kind of get into that."

Her favorite song in the show is "I'd Give My Life for You."

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FL MORRIS / FMORRIS@STARBULLETIN.COM Laine Yoshioka, left, and Fran Gendrano, right, play bar girls and Joey Caldarone plays the Engineer in "Miss Saigon."

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STAGING THE SHOW is a coup for ACT's tireless director, Vanita Rae Smith, even though the theme and "adult" subject matter involved in this blockbuster reworking of "Madame Butterfly" and "M. Butterfly" might make "Miss Saigon" seem an unlikely choice for a theater company that specializes in Broadway classics that rarely go farther than PG in terms of language and sexual content.

"Miss Saigon" contains the harshest language and most "adult" subject matter in an ACT main stage production since Ron Bright came over from Kaneohe to direct "Grease" in 1997. The issue of responsibility for children sired and abandoned by U.S. military personnel is also unpalatable in some circles.

The bottom line, however, is that being that first community theater group to present "Miss Saigon" in Hawaii is a coup for ACT. The size of Richardson Theatre makes sold-out shows relatively rare, but tickets are selling at a record pace, which should help ACT's bottom line.

In Masuda, Smith has a "Kim" relatively close to the protagonist's age. She also made interesting casting choices for other roles. The ethnicity of the American soldiers and Chris's American wife isn't specified in the script, but in most productions Chris and Ellen are Caucasians, and John is African American. With Hesch, who is German Micronesian, as Chris, Kerr as John and Renee Garcia Hartenstein as Ellen, Smith's take on the romantic tragedy promises to give the story a fresh look.

As for the little girl who'll be breaking hearts each night as Kim, Masuda plans to continue her theatrical career with two years of study at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and then transfer to a performing arts school on the mainland. After that the next stop is Broadway.