The kids of Stevenson School do a musical take on Studs Terkel's nonfiction book Working.

The kids of Stevenson School theater are doing the musical Working this and next weekend. Stevenson School is the private school comprising 25 or so buildings on 50 acres of prime Pebble Beach land that can cost $50,000 a year for boarding school tuition (there is financial assistance, I'm told). They are doing the musical version of Studs Terkel's seminal nonfiction book about working Americans talking about how much they hate or don't hate their jobs, and how what they do at their jobs defines or doesn't define them.

That is one juxtaposition to savor. And that is a bold choice their theater program deserves to be congratulated for.

Here is why.

Studs Terkel, who died in 2008, was Chicago's everyman champion: a journalist, oral historian, sturdy liberal Democrat, Pulitzer-winning author (of The Good War: An Oral History of World War Two), WFMT radio personality (for 45 years!) and White Sox fan. He smoked cigars. He grew up in a lively Jewish home. He worked in the WPA Federal Writers' Project. He fought the law when the law was wrong. He covered newsmakers and cultural figures like Martin Luther King Jr., Dorothy Parker and Bob Dylan. He lived to 96 and seemingly never stopped working.

He wrote books—more accurately, he compiled people's stories into books—that respected the nuance and humanity of each person's life. He interviewed thousands in his own lifetime to assemble these oral history books, on jazz, on the Great Depression, on race. The big idea was to find some approximation of the American Dream—that was another title of one of his books.

Another is titled Working. That one, published in 1974, is subtitled People Talk About What They Do All Day and How They Feel About What They Do. He talks to and faithfully shares the stories of a cross-section of folks: a miner, a bank teller, a farmer; a garbage man, a stockbroker, a film critic; a department store manager, a baseball player, an executive. A "supermarket box boy" tells Terkel he was resentful when customers bought grapes expressly as an affront to the United Farm Workers' grape boycott.

Terkel was renowned for letting people's voices carry the story, giving people the space to say their piece, good or bad. You read these accounts and you hear the voices, feel the emotions, smell the clothes. They are as vivid as memories of a movie.

But a musical?

Yep. Stephen Schwartz (Pippen, Wicked) and Nina Faso (Godspell, The Rocky Horror Show) and songwriters like James Taylor, Micki Grant, Craig Carnelia and others thought to adapt a musical out of the faithfully transcribed oral stories. It was the '70s. People did things like that.

The book was a best-seller; the musical was a belly-flop. But the idea was daring—egalitarian and proletariat, philosophical and political. So kudos to Stevenson School Theater Director Kim Schmittgens (Stevenson class of 1981) for unearthing and dusting off this idea-rich treasure chocked full of everyday heros like a millworker, a mason, a phone operator and waitress.

"It's real people, real words," Schmittgens says. "This is a patchwork of America. I thought it was a terrific acting challenge and for the singers to tell the story of these people in an authentic way. A lot of our kids had to look up what the jobs were."

Schmittgens moved to Chicago for graduate school, where she studied theater, and got to perform in Working and even met Terkel.

There is no narrative thread in the musical. Each actor plays a few characters, in minimalist costume, and tells their own story. Actor Kevin Matsumoto, a 16-year-old who's performed on local stages since first grade, plays three characters—a hedgefund manager, a retiree and a student.

"I had never heard of [the musical] before," he says. "I couldn't find a plot line when I looked it up. Then I realized it was just people talking. And when I read the script, I liked the people."

The cast has been rehearsing for five weeks. In that time, Matsumoto says he's gleaned insights about the real-life characters: "They all believe they're right. Rex [the hedgefund manager] probably wouldn't hesitate to fire someone. But when you're channeling him, you believe he's right. It's weird to think that everyone is walking around thinking that their way is right."

Although he's coached tennis camp in Monterey, he says he doesn't consider himself having been a member of the workforce yet. He says he realizes that, going to Stevenson School and owning a car, he has possesses a privileged lifestyle. He also says he likes "nitty gritty" stories like Oliver Twist, but that Working is different: "It's real. A guy stuck at a fast food place. A guy who got fired and is mad at his boss."

There's dancing. Not in the traditional sense.

"More expressive dramatic movement," Schmittgens says. "Cleaning women doing a Diana Ross and the Supremes number. Instead of long silky gloves, they're wearing Playtex gloves."

There is some cussing. Not a lot. These are Americans talking about their jobs, after all. Matsumoto says the testimonials from the 26 characters has taught him a lesson about what he can expect when he gets out into the workforce.

"I think [work] is what you make of it. Some characters are a little depressed they're dong the same thing every day. Another character is a waitress who's having fun with her job."

That waitress character is one of those people who would be having fun with her job if her job was a pet cemetery mortician. Some people are indestructibly attuned to the miracle of life that way.

"It speaks to the humanity, the everyman, the desire to leave your mark," Schmittgens says. "The simple dignity of everyday Americans who go to work to put food on their table. That urge: 'I built that. I was on this planet.'"

Normally visitors pay a fee to enter Pebble Beach, but Stevenson School Assistant Director of Communications Warren Anderson suggests you mention to the guy working the guard station that you're going to see this musical and the fee should be waived. And if there's any trouble, don't sweat him. He's just working.

Working: A Musical runs 7:30pm Fri and Sat Feb. 6 and 7; 2pm Sunday Feb. 8; 7:30pm Thu-Sat Feb. 12-14, at Stevenson School's Keck Auditorium, 3152 Forest Lake Road, Pebble Beach. $10/general; $7/military, students, seniors. 625-8389, www.StevensonSchool.org/boxoffice.