Inspired by a similar project up the Pacific Coast and out to prove their worth as jazz musicians, two teens in modern-day Portland, OR form an all-star band of local girls.

SYNOPSIS:

KAYLEE MCNAMARA and PARKER SCHALLERT are a pair of 16-year-old girls from Portland, Oregon...best friends to the end. Nothing can stop their friendship...not even the death of Parker’s father Byron, the act that forced Parker and her livewire mother CLAIRE to move off the McNamaras’ block and into a smaller house on the other side of town.

And nothing can stop Parker’s and Kaylee’s love of playing jazz piano...something the two BFFs prove at Director Park, the launching pad for the Rose City’s annual street-piano exhibition, “Piano. Push. Play.”

Fearless-and-eager Kaylee tickles the ivories in the jazz band at her high school, Franklin...where band director RANDALL SCHOENEMANN treats her “like...a DEI hire.” It figures...Kaylee’s the only girl in Franklin’s jazz ensemble. Byron’s demise forced laid-back Parker to transfer to Grant High School, home of Oregon’s best prep jazz band. As Parker puts it: “I’d have to wait until somebody dies before I can be a member.”

The two buddies draw on those experiences, as well as the inspiration from Seattle’s Femme Ellington Project (a jazz band made up of high school girls put down over their gender), to start a similar unit in Portland.

First place Kaylee and Parker look: Rip City’s famous Oaks Park Roller Rink...where 15-year-old organist AUDRA WELLES provides the music on Sunday afternoons. And that’s when Audra doesn’t play the manuals and stomp the pedals at her church...as the successor to a man who died of old age.

Audra becomes the new band’s initial find...despite her kookiness, the kind that drives her to wear costumes when she plays for skaters.

Slowly but surely, Kaylee and her bestie recruit other PDX-area musicians; two of the standouts are trumpeter JULIE KELLNER and trombonist MALIA CARTER, a pair of Jefferson High School students who’ve put their school’s marching band and jazz ensemble back together.

Never mind that Jefferson’s marching band’s too small to make those snazzy patterns.

A pair of cheerleaders from rival schools come aboard: Exuberant trumpeter ASHLEY KIM and energetic-but-moody saxophonist CHRISTINE RAFFERTY. The suburb of Lake Oswego contributes LISA STROUSE, a gentle-and-thoughtful drummer-vibraphonist; and best buddy CINDEE HABERMAN, a cheerful, trombone-playing Rubik’s Cube enthusiast.

And then there’s BREE WATSON...a horse-loving, gung-ho drummer who’s now homeschooled because she got tired of being teased over not doing “all those ‘girly’ things.”

The outfit grows to eighteen pieces, names itself Rose Show (a nod to one of Portland’s nicknames), and gears up for its first concert: A Halloween assembly at Christine’s high school, Cleveland...the apple of Lincoln High School student Audra’s eye due to Cleveland’s theater pipe organ.

Along the way, Rose Show loses its first rehearsal venue, the Multnomah Arts Center...because administrator TODD HENRIE thinks the band isn’t progressing to his liking: “You’re in over your heads!” Despite the switch to a friendlier practice spot in Audra’s church, First United Methodist, nothing prepares the band for almost-total rejection at Cleveland High’s October 31 assembly.

First of all, Christine’s jealous boyfriend LANDON MEYERS walks out of the school auditorium in the middle of Rose Show’s first number, Charlie Barnet’s “Skyliner.” Then Audra’s solo toward the end of the tune drives away HALF THE STUDENTS IN THE UPPER DECK.

By the end, only Cleveland’s faculty and some die-hard enrollees remain to dig Rose Show.

As Parker and her BFF work to get to the bottom of the walkout, they find out Audra and Christine have taken the snub the hardest: Audra won’t enter the church during Rose Show rehearsal nights anymore...only to amend the action to hiding out in the church basement; and Christine, who’s already active in many Cleveland High organizations and who set up the October concert, drops music altogether...calling the act of girls jamming “a sore spot for a lot of people...especially my boyfriend.”

So much for the two things Kaylee loves to stress: Confidence and bravery.

The band’s two founders toy with reducing the act to sixteen members...but Parker successfully invites fellow Grant student MERCEDES BARRERO, a painstaking saxophonist, to jump in. And oh-so-inspiring Malia teams with feisty Julie in bringing in analytical ALICIA TOWNSEND, a Jefferson classmate, to replace Audra at the manuals.

All this time, on the strength of a YouTube video of the band’s debut, Portland’s Hollywood Theater invites Rose Show to play there in February. Worried that the group will empty the Hollywood out, Cindee and Lisa invite KANDACE MARGERUM, one of Lake Oswego High’s counselors, to a Rose Show rehearsal in the name of emotional support.

Kandace’s visit not only resonates with Rose Show’s holdovers and newcomers...it entices Christine and an equally-repentant Audra to come back to the band and make it a twenty-musician group. First UMC lead pastor BONNIE HANKERSON sweetens the pot by offering Rose Show a January gig right there in the church sanctuary...a confidence-boosting opportunity.

The Show’s first two concerts of the new year give Kaylee, Parker, and Co. a real chance to go all out to give audiences a sound that “hits different...” from a banjo solo by band guitarist ZORA GRANDBERRY to both Bree and Lisa playing their hearts out on drums to Alicia and Audra sharing the same organ console to Kaylee playing accordion and Parker rhythm guitar (and leaving the 88s to Cindee and Lisa).

Result: Parker, Kaylee, and bandmates successfully stand up for being heard and respected without having to worry about being perfect...and Todd, Randall, and Landon come to understand Rose Show’s the real deal (and become fans in the process).

ROSE SHOW