Leo Fitzpatrick as Tony and Andrew Mendes as Bernardo in a "rumble" scene from "West Side Story," a St. Helena Drama production.

St. Helena Drama standouts Andrew Mendes and Leo Fitzpatrick each wanted to play the lead role of Tony in "West Side Story," and each had the experience and talent to do it.

They could both have the part, director Patti Coyle told them -- as long as they were also willing to play Bernardo, Tony's nemesis.

She had a deal. Mendes calls Bernardo "super cool" even though he'd auditioned to play Tony.

"When I was offered the opportunity to play two great characters I thought, 'Why not?'" Mendes said.

Fitzpatrick said playing Tony, a Jet, and Bernardo, a Shark, "gives you the empathy to understand both sides of the story, even when there's this trifecta of hate between Tony, Bernardo and Riff."

Double-casting is common for St. Helena Drama, but it's unusual to have two actors alternate between two major roles. There's a practical reason to do it in this case. Bernardo doesn't sing (with one exception), and Mendes and Fitzpatrick are both good singers, so double-casting gives them each a chance to shine vocally.

Playing Tony and Bernardo requires mastering two accents, the trickier one being Bernardo's.

Mendes and Fitzpatrick wanted to nail the nuances -- soft Rs sound a bit like Ls -- and avoid caricature. They took cues from Ana Figueroa Rios, a Puerto Rican-American AVID tutor at Robert Louis Stevenson Middle School who coached the cast.

"Obviously neither of us are Puerto Rican," Fitzpatrick said. "We wanted to avoid being stereotypical, but we needed to make the distinction between these two different characters."

"It's not like we're mocking," Mendes said. "If anything, we're paying our respects. It's an honor to play that role."

Coyle said there have been a few funny moments in rehearsal where Tony briefly used a Puerto Rican accent and Bernardo briefly used a New York accent.

"I never would have asked so much of my young leading men if I didn't think they could handle it," Coyle said.

Mendes has been acting in St. Helena Drama since 2020's "Newsies," when he was the only cast member still in middle school. He was in seventh-grade at the time.

Fitzpatrick "has shown consistent improvement as an actor and a singer/dancer since he began the program his freshman year," Coyle said.

If Mendes and Fitzpatrick do feel a sense of rivalry, they did an exceptional job hiding it during a recent interview, where they came as friends who have bonded through a shared challenge.

"Both young men are not only incredible performers, there have been true leaders in drama as I see them mentor younger actors and one another," Coyle said.

"West Side Story" incorporated choreography -- including fight choreography -- into its storytelling in a way that was new to Broadway in the 1950s. The cast uses blunted blades for the "rumbles" between the Jets and the Sharks, but "you can still get nicked," said Fitzpatrick, pointing to a cut on his hand.

Fitzpatrick pointed to one long sequence with no dialogue or singing, just the cast dancing under silhouette lighting.

"It paints the backstory of why these guys are mad at each other," Fitzpatrick said. "We tell that story purely through dancing."■

In the KNOW

St. Helena Drama presents 'West Side Story'

· St. Helena Performing Arts Center: 1401 Grayson Ave.

· 7 p.m. Friday, March 14

· 7 p.m. Saturday, March 15

· 2 p.m. Sunday, March 16

· 7 p.m. Friday, March 21

· 7 p.m. Saturday, March 22

· 2 p.m. Sunday, March 23

· Tickets: $15-$25

· shhs.sthelenaunified.org/drama