Skye’s the Limit for ‘Birdie’ Teen Actress

TOM TITUS

The first time I saw “Bye Bye Birdie,” it was the movie version, and

the enduring memory of that flick is a young, sassy Ann-Margret

belting out the title song against a gigantic blue backdrop.

That song isn’t part of the original stage production, now being

briskly revived by the Huntington Beach Playhouse. However, the young

lady playing the teen-age cutie recruited for “one last kiss” with

the Elvis-like pop idol still makes her audiences sit up and take

notice.

Skye Bronfenbrenner is just 16 years old, but she’s packed a

near-lifetime of stage experience into those tender years. She’s

flown through the air as Peter Pan and rumbled with the Jets as the

tomboy in “West Side Story.” And she has more than six collective

years of training in ballet, jazz, tap, voice and acting.

“My family was very arts-oriented,” she says. “They said I started

singing right after I learned to talk. My mom read to me a lot when I

was a young girl, things like Shakespeare and Sherlock Holmes. I grew

up watching the old Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire musicals.”

From the time she first trod the stage in fifth grade as the

smallest Munchkin in “The Wizard of Oz,” Skye knew what she wanted to

do with her life.

“The kids in theater just seemed to fit in with my personality,”

she recalls. “I never really hit it off with the ‘normal’ kids, but

in theater, I found out there were others like me.”

When she was 11, she joined the Musical Youth Artist Repertory

Theater, a Long Beach-based children’s theater company, and found

herself in the chorus of “Peter Pan” at 12. Two years later, “Peter

Pan” came around again, and this time Skye was high in the title

role.

“Five years of training in karate helped,” she commented. “I was

really comfortable with weapons and stage combat.”

The latter talent came in handy when she played the role of

Anybody’s in the theater’s production of “West Side Story.”

After playing either boys or boyish girls in those two shows and

“The Secret Garden,” the latter for the Academy for the Performing

Arts in Huntington Beach, Skye raised her sights to community theater

and was cast as Isabel in “The Pirates of Penzance” for the

Huntington Beach Playhouse last season. She returned to audition for

“Birdie,” and was assigned a chorus role and the understudy for the

part of Kim McAfee.

“The girl who originally was cast had some work conflicts and had

to drop out,” Skye says. “So the director (Michael Lopez) came to me

about halfway through rehearsals and said, ‘You’re Kim.’ I was

terrified.”

Not for long, however, Skye threw herself into the part and by

opening night she was so adept at her assignment that this column’s

review dubbed her the “standout of the cast.”

“I learned how far I can go with other people believing in me,”

she says. “This role has given me the confidence for life in

general.”

Still just a junior, Skye intends to audition for the academy’s

upcoming production of “Evita,” but isn’t setting her sights on the

title role.

“I’m still young,” she reasons. “I’ve got plenty of time.”

Not that she hasn’t already been noticed at school. Skye was

nominated for “rookie of the year” at APA and also received a best

supporting actress nomination for “Secret Garden.” Her skills at

English earned her the Huntington Beach Tower Award.

As for the future, Skye definitely wants to carve out a performing

career.

“I really can’t do anything else,” she explains. “It would feel

wrong. I could never imagine myself getting bored with theater --

it’s my adrenaline, my high. I don’t need drugs. The love of theater

is my strongest emotion after my family.”

But should she become a big star, how does she expect to fit “Skye

Bronfenbrenner” onto a marquee?

“Maybe I could just be known as ‘Skye B,’” she suggests.

Whatever path she chooses, you can bet that the Skye is the limit.

* TOM TITUS reviews local theater for the Independent.