Standing in a crowded lunchroom, Evanston Township High School freshman Ricky McLean belts out a love song to a girl at the end of his table. Before she can react, the other students launch into a jamsession to accompany his song, drumming on their lunch trays and dancing with each other.

Sound like something that could only happen in a melodramatic movie? Close, but with the help of Northwestern students from Vertigo Productions’ new mentoring program, McLean wrote the scene for the pupils’ play “I knew I had it when.” He and seven other local high school students spent eight weeks learning about theater with Northlight Theatre Outreach Coordinator Karen LaShelle and NU mentors. The high school pupils will wrap up the program Saturday with a variety show.

LaShelle has headed student theater programs in other places, but she said Evanston presented a unique opportunity. “I saw that Evanston was an interesting community, and it has this prestigious university, but it also had sections that were underserved,” she said. Northlight agreed to fund the new mentor group, and LaShelle’s intern, Speech junior Roni Geva, helped organize 10 NU volunteers.

Finding students to teach theater was no problem at all, Geva said.

“It’s kind of nice to get out into the community and look beyond Northwestern,” said Rebecca Fox, a Vertigo mentor. “It’s easy to get caught up in all your (school) activities.”

LaShelle asked local high schools, after-school programs and alternative schools to recommend pupils for the program. Eight high schoolers joined and met with their mentors for four hours on Saturdays.

Each high school pupil was paired with a college mentor of the same sex at their request, Geva said. “In some ways we’re authority figures so having us be the same gender helped bridge that gap,” said Fox, a Speech junior.

While lesson plans were devised by LaShelle and Geva, the mentors participated in writing exercises and improvisational games along with the pupils.

“Really you get a sense that everyone is learning together even though the NU students are much more experienced,” Geva said.

Although the group met in a classroom in Swift Hall, mentor Joe Schneider said that “it was more like a workshop than a class.” The pupils also kept personal journals, where they responded to questions such as why they are extraordinary or when they were happiest in life, said Schneider, Weinberg junior.

When the pupils began preparing to put together the show, they went back to their journals for inspiration to help them write monologues and scenes.

“We’re creating theater that’s not so much a product, but a process,” LaShelle said. Despite the short amount of time the pupils had, their performances incorporate many different genres including music and dance, she said.

“The students wanted to express themselves in a different way, and we weren’t going to stop that,” Schneider said.

To Danae Jones, an ETHS sophomore, the freedom of theatrical expression represents more than a possible career. “Theater helped me understand why I’m here on this earth,” she said.

The pupils still are working on staging for the performance this weekend, but Geva said she’s not worried about pulling everything together. “That’s how it always is with theater – you work up to the last second and then this magical thing happens, and it’s amazing.”

There will be a free performance of the hour-long show at 3 p.m. on Saturday in the Jones Great Room. The show also will be performed at 8 p.m. on Monday at the Northlight Theatre, 9501 Skokie Blvd.

Geva said she was pleased with the results of the program and even got teary-eyed seeing her pupils work together.

“It was lovely to see them grow,” she said. Geva added that some of these pupils might be more encouraged to go to college because of the relationships they made with their mentors. “Now they have an experience having a college student as a close friend,” she said.

Fox agreed, saying her favorite part of the program was developing friendships with the high schoolers. Showing the kids that they had the ability to create theater and then watching them follow through with the process was another perk, she said.

The mentor program will continue next winter, and Geva said she would like to add another session in the fall.

“Theater is wonderful,” she said, “and it can change lives – I truly believe that.” nyou