Director Frank Portanova knew there’d be technical challenges when he, producer Keith Sunderland and choreographer Charlotte Newman chose “Singin’ in the Rain” as the spring musical at Archbishop Stepinac High School.
The stage musical – directed on Broadway by Twyla Tharp in a production that opened July 2, 1985, and ran for 367 performances – is a faithful adaptation of the classic 1952 MGM musical that starred Gene Kelly, Debbie Reynolds and Donald O’Connor. It runs this weekend and next at the White Plains school.

“Singin’ in the Rain” has all the famous song-and-dance numbers – “Fit as a Fiddle,” “Make ‘Em Laugh,” “You Are My Lucky Star,” “Moses Supposes” and “Good Mornin’” – but song and dance didn’t worry Portanova. Stepinac had done song and dance before.

Portanova wasn’t concerned about finding actresses to come to the all-boys Catholic school. In a Stepinac tradition, he enlisted the help of several Catholic girls schools: Maria Regina, Our Lady of Victory, Good Counsel Academy and The Ursuline School. Actresses they’d have.

No. There were two big challenges: Movies and rain.

Since the show is about silent movies and the advent of “talkies,” they needed to film five scenes to be projected on a big screen. Yes, this musical – based on a movie – has movies in it.

And there was that meteorological event that occurs in the title song. How to make it rain?

Producer Sunderland says he and technical manager Kevin Vachna gathered the “advice, thoughts and opinions of many to create our rain system.”

And rain it shall.

“Because they started on the rain so early, it wasn’t a worry,” Portanova says. “They tried it for the first time at the end of February and they’ve been tweaking it, so it really wasn’t a concern.”

The show is unusual for having dance numbers built for three – Don Lockwood (Brian Vega), Cosmo Brown (Julian Amato), and Kathy Selden (Danielle Dallacco) – and all three get a workout in the song “Good Mornin’.”

“That’s one of the most memorable songs,” Dallacco says. “Everyone knows that.”

“It’s one of my favorite scenes, even though we all got hurt at least once doing it,” she says. “It’s so demanding and it’s such a long number that you always have to be on top of your game.”

The song comes after Don, Cosmo and Kathy have been up all night but they still manage to dance, full-out, for the better part of five minutes. It ends, as fans of the movie will recall, with the three jumping up on a couch, flipping it over and collapsing on it.

That kind of trick would be tough for one dancer, but the timing required for three dancers to pull it off is off the charts.

First, they had to find the right couch, bringing a whole new meaning to casting couches, one better suited to a Catholic all-boys school than that other unseemly variety.

Producer Sunderland says they went through several sofas before they found just the right one – donated by their neighbor, Our Lady of Sorrows School. After bracing it for the workout it gets in “Good Mornin’,” the couch is ready for its big moment.

Movies, rain and couches under control, there was the matter of turning Amato and Vega, two non-dancers, into hoofers of the highest form.

Says Vega, 17, a Stepinac senior: “Danielle and (choreographer) Miss (Charlotte) Newman taught me and Julian how to tap dance in three months, including some six-hour practice sessions at a dance studio.”

If there was a question of chemistry between leading man and leading lady, Portanova needn’t have worried: Vega and Dallacco have known each other since kindergarten. They attended Sacred Heart Elementary School in Hartsdale.

But there was one incident they needed to work around, jokes Dallacco, a senior at Maria Regina.

“In the second grade, he broke my science project and I threatened to sue him,” she says with a laugh. “It was a fossil project and he broke the leg off of it. It was an authentic fossil.”

“I think she got it at a dollar store, personally,” Vega counters.

Litigation was averted and they went on to share the stage at Sacred Heart and at Stepinac.

Dallacco, 18, played the title role in Stepinac’s “Thoroughly Modern Millie” last spring.

This year, there are 53 students in the cast, 25 of whom are actresses who don’t attend Stepinac. And two boys – Jonathan Calvello and Troy Trippichio -play young Don and young Cosmo.

Choreographer Newman says getting the tapping right was a challenge, and adding the right arm movements and facial expressions was another big hurdle.

“They really concentrated on the feet and once they had that, we told them ‘OK, now you have to move your arms and look at the audience and smile and act and sing,’” she says.

Dallacco has been giving mini-tap lessons during down times in rehearsal, Vega says.

“Dancing with two partners instead of one was difficult, because we all had to be synchronized,” Dallacco says. “We all have to have the same arms, we all have to have the same legs, we all have to be doing the same things.”

“It was hard being the only girl of the three and the only one with dance experience,” she adds. “At the beginning of the year, if we told them a step – ‘OK, do a shuffle-ball-change’ – they would have just looked at us. But now, they’re great and they just do it.”

At Stepinac, the musical isn’t just an extracurricular event, Portanova says.

“Each year, the curriculum in the school is tied to the themes of the musical and presented in a huge lobby display during the run of the show.

“This involves more kids in the show experience and brings theater into the English, science, history and art classrooms,” he says.

Vega says he’s ready for the title song – as iconic a moment of stagecraft as there is – when he’ll be sing and dance under a steady rainfall.

He’s been singing and dancing – and the first-rate stage crew has been practicing the rain – but putting the two together is something they’ve only done in the final days of rehearsal.

“I didn’t fall, so that means I’m pretty sure we shouldn’t have any accidents,” Vega says.

Photo by Carucha L. Meuse/The Journal News: Brian Vega, 17, and Danielle Dallacco, 18, are the lead characters for the play “Singin’ in the Rain.”

Building Character
Watch video interviews with Danielle Dallacco as Kathy Selden and Brian Vega as Don Lockwood at www.lohud.com/localtheater.

Singin’ in the Rain
Where: Archbishop Stepinac High School, 950 Mamaroneck Ave., White Plains.
When: 7:30 p.m., tomorrow, Saturday, May 2, 3; 3 p.m., May 4.
Tickets: $15; $10 for seniors and children 12 and under
Call: 914-946-4800, ext. 200
With: Taylor Cambria, Christy Siuda,Taylor Fawcett, Gioia Masone, Julie Dibbini, Anthony Mannarino, David Kaufman, Julian Amato, Meaghan McGrath, Brian Vega, Robbie Longo, Jonathan Calvello, Troy Trippichio, Garland Douglas, David Feliciano, Katie Zawiski, Najee Stephenson, Danielle Dallacco, Vincent Cretara, Ben Bruckenthal, Chris Mastrocola, Jeff Malone, Doug Daniels, Katrina Fernandez, Stephanie Carozza, Valerie Stanson, Jeff Carpenter, James Morra, Carlos Guarin, Michael Austin, Jarred Tollinchi, Brandon Russo, Mike Carnicelli, Greg Morra, Matt Lotaj, Sean Fitzgerald, Weronika Dabrowski, Barbara Keith, Annie Betz, Lisa Chiffolo, Chantelle Pineda, Julie Bretones, Daniela Talledo, Michael Finn, Charlie LoCascio, Jonathan Huynh, Teresa O’Grady, Stacey Ramirez, Lisa LoParo, Kathyrn Estavillo, Elizabeth Donoghue, Jessica Alves, Camilla Arellano, Tom DiCarlucci, Jonathan Puccini, Alex Fonseca, Tim Murphy, Jonathan Tavernia, Kevin Barry, Michael Rigaglia, Michael Taurisano, Keith Camacho, Joel Johnson, Cameron Khorassani, Christian Perez, Sean Plunkett, Kevin Fennell, Patrick Lee.