Spinning Tree’s diverting 13 reawakens your inner teenager

Those early teenage years you’ve safely filed away in your brain’s hard drive? Spinning Tree Theatre’s production of 13 calls them up for you. The good news: The play lets you watch others work their way through those socially awkward and painful years in an astute and funny musical — the entertainment enhanced by that remove.

It doesn’t hurt, either, that the lyrics are clever and the pop-rock music (by Tony Award-winning composer Jason Robert Brown) engaging, or that the eight high-schoolers and 11 middle-schoolers who make up its cast — “stars-to-be,” says Spinning Tree managing director Andrew Parkhurst, in a press release — are more than up to the task. It’s easy to envision these talented teenagers in their future adult personas.

Most of them envision themselves that way, according to the program’s bios; only a handful say they aspire to other fields. We’ve seen some of them before — at Spinning Tree, the Coterie, KC Rep, Starlight, et al. All appear at home onstage as they move through this nonstop 90-minute show, their animated dancing choreographed by Kenny Personett, their performances under the expert direction of Parkhurst and Michael Grayman. That they had just two and a half weeks of rehearsal (having got their scripts — and the soloists their songs — a month before that) clearly signals “professional.”

At the center of the story about growing up (book by Dan Elish and Robert Horn) is Evan Goldman (Fisher Stewart), nearly 13 years old and approaching his bar mitzvah. Problem is, his parents have just divorced, and his mother has moved him from New York City to Appleton, Indiana — a “town where UFOs refuel.” He’s about to enter the maelstrom of Dan Quayle Junior High. Cool and calm one minute and anguished the next, Stewart’s Evan tries to fit in as he negotiates the school’s social hierarchies: jocks, geeks, etc.

I last saw Stewart in Musical Theater Heritage’s Oliver, citing him then as a “roguish and independent Artful Dodger with a sensitive side” (“Musical Theater Heritage’s boiled-down Oliver proves why the show still works,” The Pitch, December 11, 2014). He doesn’t disappoint here, either, generating sympathy and conveying panic as he tries to get the cool kids to take him in. (Jordan Haas, a supporting character in this show, worked with Stewart in that MTH production as its title character.)

The singing of Allison Banks, as Evan’s geek friend Patrice, also pulls us in and makes us care, especially her touching “What It Means to Be a Friend.” Which is a big part of what this show is all about. But allying himself with Patrice and the disabled Archie (Joshua L. Holloway) would make Evan ineligible for the popular clique. So he sets out to work the angles — and the cast’s lively “All Hail the Brain” starts him on that quest.

Get ready for parodied antics that are amusing in their familiarity: learning about girls, boys, friendship and sex (“What comes after the tongue?” the frantic cool kid Brett wants to know) while navigating hookups, breakups, acceptance and rejection. Not that the personal politics of 13 are ultimately all that different from those of the adult world — just less sophisticated. Here, at least, there’s amusement in learning life’s lessons (“A Little More Homework”).

Holloway is charming as Archie, a boy with a degenerative disease, and he’s funny, particularly in scenes tied to the kids’ attendance at the R-rated The Bloodmaster. (Nicole Jaja’s mood-accentuating lighting design bathes the stage in red as the performers react in horrified unison to the pretend movie’s gore.) He’s also physically skillful, leaning forward on metal forearm crutches while creating the illusion of dragging his feet behind.

Jared Berlin’s Brett, football player and most popular kid, is an appealing mix of bravado, callowness and insecurity. As two best friends — for a while, anyway — the innocent Kendra (Libby Terril) and the controlling, conniving Lucy (Devyn Trondson) are perfectly paired, playing both into and away from boilerplate, even as the show demarcates type. These characters’ minions (too many to name here) are also a joy to watch. The foursome of Jake Bartley, Sheridan Mirador, Cael Kuhn and Haas belt out “Bad Bad News” (about the evil Lucy) like a seasoned boy band.

The show slows down in a couple of places but mostly moves at a toe-tapping clip under the music direction of keyboardist Gary Green and his excellent band: percussionist Kyle Brown, guitarist Joe Levens and bassist Kevin Payton.

I might not have left the show humming its tunes, but the energy and performances have remained in mind, as have the characters. It’s an awkward time of life, but these 19 young performers are anything but out of step — and they make that world well worth the visit.