Two dozen teenagers, an almost-teen and several definitely post-teens were crammed into Pierrette Jensen's living room in Yuba City Tuesday listening to director Staci Johnson scope out the play.

It was a warm summer evening and the dense crowd pushed the inside temperature at Chez Pierrette to the uncomfortable range. The young actors idly fanned themselves as a lone fan arced back and forth.

"I'll give the history of how this came to be. I wasn't going to direct anything this year. I was the back-up director for this. The director backed out," Johnson explained.

(Then wouldn't that make her the "back-out" director?)

"I can't do this alone. I'm directing a production at the Forbes dinner house. After rehearsal here, I have to go there. As you all know, I also do the Yuba-Sutter Pageant. That starts in two weeks. I've asked Pierrette to help. Neither one of us was going to direct this year, but I couldn't do it without her."

(So far, so bad. Grim headline in tomorrow's Variety: Reluctant director warns cast she's stressed to the max before the show even gets going.)

"But if there's any play I'd like to direct, it's "Grease!" I'm glad I'm doing it," Johnson adds, smiling.

(Whew!)

Professional, focused, Johnson then lays out for the young cast what is expected of them.

Sign in here. Make sure you name is spelled. Be at rehearsals when you're supposed to be. Know you lines. Work the whole time.

"Just because I'm might be working with Jenny here doesn't mean you can goof off" -- she puts on a dufus grin, lolls her head about -- "You should be in the other room going over your songs."

So much for the hard stuff. Now for the fun. Jensen produces a rough mock-up of the stage set, likely to be built by Randy Fayette, who also constructed the sets for "Bugsy Malone."

It looked good. Three basic elements, creatively linked to provide all the scenes of a distantly recalled high school: bleachers, gym, lockers in the hallway, plenty of places to rock 'n' roll.

Costumes and scenes are to be cartoonish in the way a dream resolves the past into simplified and idealized images.

There were revisions to the opening scene. Some songs will be deleted, some substituted, some added.

"Imagine going to Grease! and not hearing, 'Hopelessly Devoted to You'?" Johnson wondered aloud, with overtones of a remembered date.

"We're going to have a real car!" Oohs and aahs, ripple around the room. "'Greased Lightning' -- the name of the Kenickie's beloved rod -- "is going to be soooo hot!"

The read-through showed strengths and weaknesses. The kids generally had the sense of the characters down and an understanding of how to deliver lines. Most of them have probably seen at least the movie.

But improvements wee needed in some areas. Notably diction and enunciation. They also need someone to explain the difference between acting for film, with which they are familiar, and acting for the stage, which makes different demands and requires different techniques.

As for diction and delivery, Jasper Oliver, Dahni Trujillo and Colleen Sullivan are for the moment the clearest. Matt Monaco, needs to speak up and sharpen his enunciation. Tyler Brand has good enunciation, but needs to slow down. In fact, everyone has to slow down. Learn to savor their lines and punch the words. Over act, ever so slightly in keeping with the cartoonish atmosphere the directors would like to achieve.

As stage actors, they must understand that their performances unlike those of movie actors, cant be paused, rewound and played again to decipher the garbled words.

They should know that their performances in Grease! will be as ephemeral as the young years they are currently sailing through. It behooves them to draw out, polish and perfect the few lines and songs they have now, for those, too, will never come again.