Photos by Kyle Green | The Roanoke Times

Actors take costumes from a car before a dress rehearsal for "MEN2B," an original musical based on the music of the Beatles' "Abbey Road."

Acting coach Rose McCutchan (center) sits with actors Bethlehem Cherrix (left) and Marsden Woddail (right) before a dress rehearsal for "MEN2B."

Meet the Beatles?

Well, not quite. In the latest production by Floyd County's maturing Young Actors Co-op, the Fab Four have become a faux four -- a boy band composed of fakers who couldn't twist and shout their way out of a wet paper bag.

"MEN2B" -- the name is taken from a rare disease that may have afflicted Abraham Lincoln, though it also sums up the young musicians -- pokes a lot of fun at rock 'n' roll.

But the Young Actors Co-op is in earnest. Founder and director Rose McCutchan and a group of parents and volunteers are striving to give children from Floyd and beyond a creative outlet, and also bring community theater to a county without an active one. Students from the Floyd Music School are also involved in the show, which includes an original song by Adam Parks.

Among the co-op's previous shows were a version of Orson Welles' famous radio broadcast of H.G. Wells' "The War of the Worlds" and a shortened and modernized "A Midsummer Night's Dream."

"We've had to work really, really, really, really hard to get an audience," McCutchan said.

It seems to be working: At a performance of a comedy revue last winter, about 100 people showed up.

Here to stay, finally

McCutchan, 30, grew up in Floyd County and studied acting in New York, earning a theater degree from Marymount Manhattan College.

She founded her co-op, originally called the Young Actors Project, in 2004, she said. "I wanted to use my degree. I never expected to make any money at it," she said.

She mounted several productions before returning to New York. For a while, McCutchan shuttled back and forth between little Floyd and the Big Apple, mounting children's productions whenever she was here. "It took me four years to finally just stay," McCutchan said.

Since McCutchan came back for good, the co-op has grown rapidly. When rehearsals for "MEN2B" were announced, she said, 25 children showed up. The co-op accepts students from ages 6 to 18.

"MEN2B" is the co-op's first original full-length feature. For the past two months the young actors have been working hard to learn the 171-page script by the unofficial co-op wordsmith Haden Polseno-Hensley (who is also McCutchan's boyfriend).

Some 19 young actors ages 8 to 18 will be in the play, which in addition to the band includes admiring girls, the band's road manager and "an evil super producer," Polseno-Hensley said.

Polseno-Hensley, the son of "16 Hands" potters Donna Polseno and Richard Hensley, has a master's degree in creative writing from the University of Alaska, Anchorage. "A lot of it is fairly ridiculous," he said of his play.

Ridiculous or not, it is the co-op's most ambitious effort to date -- a sign of how far it has come, and how far it has to go.

No home, no money

The truth is, the co-op is at a crossroads.

For years, it has mounted productions on a shoestring. Winter Sun Music Hall in Floyd, where the actors perform, does not charge a rental fee for rehearsals.

"They've been as accommodating as they possibly can," said McCutchan, who works several other part-time jobs to make ends meet. "But they are a business."

The co-op -- whose acronym is Y.A.C., which everyone pronounces "yack" -- has no permanent home. Costumes are stored in costume manager Susan Osborne's van. McCutchan stores theater props in her own van.

"There's no money and there's no home base. Those are our biggest problems," McCutchan said.

The young actors are asked to contribute $80 to help with production expenses, with a little left over for McCutchan, but not everyone does, McCutchan said.

Still, she can't stand to tell anyone "No."

"These kids are good -- and it's good family fun," she said. "There's not really much public stuff in Floyd for kids to consistently do."

There is talk of the co-op becoming a nonprofit someday, and perhaps adding acting lessons to the mix.

But it's clear to McCutchan that something must be done.

"What is Y.A.C. going to become?" she wondered aloud after a recent rehearsal. "We're getting so big." She said the co-op will probably have some decisions to make about its future -- after the show.

Getting ready

"Play us something really cracking," said Ian Gammerino, 14, the lanky mop-topped actor who looks a little like John Lennon. Other members of the pseudo Beatles are Emerson Perry, Cameron Woodruff and Elias Sarver-Wolf.

The scene was a "songwriting" session with hired musicians, in which the band members make a pitiful attempt at writing a song of their own.

As the boys rehearsed on a recent afternoon, other young actors and their parents and siblings came and went, some congregating on a porch to one side of the auditorium to enjoy the gorgeous day.

Some of the young actors came from far-flung corners of this mountainous county to be a part of this. Most gave up other things.

"I've always had fun performing and singing," said Mars Woddail, 13, who plays the band's road manager and sings a song in the play.

Sarver-Wolf, 11, came all the way from Blacksburg.

"I like a lot of people in Floyd," he said. "And I really like to act."

"I think this is really community theater at its best," said Tammie Sarver, his mother.

Inside, McCutchan sat in a chair before the stage, keeping the marathon rehearsal on track. "Stick to the lines," she called out at one point, when the actors began to improvise. And, when one of them sang "Eleanor Rigby" in falsetto: "Why do you always do that voice there? It drives me crazy."

There was obviously still work to be done as the rehearsal contained plenty of missed cues and forgotten lines.

But McCutchan didn't seem concerned.

"I think now we're going to see it really fall into place," she said when the rehearsal was finally over.

"We'll be ready. We always are."