While the Half Moon Bay Coastside may be most famous for its pumpkins, there’s a crop of another sort that’s headed for stardom as well. This year’s Half Moon Bay Art & Pumpkin Festival — for the first time in its 37-year history — will showcase the talents of local youth performers in The Golden Gourds. The show will take place from 3pm to 5pm each day of the festival, October 18-19, at the Bank of America Family Fun Zone.

Directed and MC’d by Michael Lederman of the Coastal Theatre Conservatory, The Golden Gourds will feature young people from first grade through high school, taking to the stage with everything from show tunes and comedy to classical music and original rock ‘n’ roll. Colin Price will be the show’s musical director.

Eighth-grade singer Kelly Tittle starred as Marian the Librarian in CTC’s recent production of the 1957 Broadway hit, The Music Man, about the con man, Harold Hill, who falls for the local librarian. She will sing Marian’s romantic ballad, “Till There Was You.” And who can forget the dashing young men from that same Broadway show’s barbershop quartet? A foursome of local 13-year-olds will sing the catchy tunes “Ice Cream” and “Sincere” (“How Can There be Any Sin in Sincere?”).

Zoe Hopkins-Ward, a seventh-grader, will belt out the gutsy lyrics of “Broadway Baby” from the 1971 Broadway musical, Follies, a nostalgic look at the glory days of the Ziegfeld Follies. She will play the starring role of Mary Lennox in The Secret Garden at the CTC in November.

The following year on Broadway, 1972, had another smash hit with Pippin, the story of a young man embarking on a search for a fulfilling life. Eighth-grader Bobby Conte-Thornton will perform the emotion-packed “Corner of the Sky,” when Pippin tells the scholars of the time about his dreams. He will play the role of Dickon in CTC’s upcoming production of The Secret Garden.

The brother-and-sister team of Emily (6^th grade) and Michael (1^st grade) Whitlatch will sing a duet of “I’d Do Anything” from Oliver!, the 1960 British musical loosely based on the Charles Dickens classic Oliver Twist. Emily will also sing a solo.

The antithesis of Charles Dickens, John Waters brought the American ‘80s to the big screen with Hairspray. In the 1988 musical romp, a “pleasantly plump” teen named Tracy Turnblad pursues stardom as a dancer on a local TV show while rallying against racial segregation. Eighth-grader Hillary Dewitt will perform “I Can Hear the Bells,” Tracy’s hopeful love song for heart-throb Link Larkin, boyfriend of snobby rich girl Amber von Tussle.

Lucas Gust, a ninth-grader who has been performing since he was a tot and most recently starred at CTC as Tevya in Fiddler on the Roof and Harold Hill in The Music Man, will bring his crooning talents to Main Street with a tribute to Sinatra.

At just 10 years old, Evan Quirk will take to the stage to perform the Beatles melancholy classic “Yesterday.” Turning up the volume, a group of about 20 members of the Coastal Theatre Conservatory will come together as a choral group to perform a “surprise” song.

GEMS (Gail Edwards Music Studio), a Pacifica-based flute ensemble of middle-school and high-school students from across San Mateo County, will perform four pieces: the “Colonel Bogey March,” the theme song from the movie The Bridge on the River Kwai, adapted from a popular British military march; Mozart’s “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik” (allegro); Tchaikovsky’s “Dance of the Little Swans”; and Handel’s “Arrival of the Queen of Sheeba.” The ensemble’s director, Gail Edwards, is a distinguished flutist who performs opera, ballet, orchestra and chamber music.

On a much lighter note, the CTC Improv All-Stars (ages 12-16) will take suggestions from the audience and put their best comedic feet forward. Other CTC members will act as paparazzi pursuing candid shots of the on-stage ad-libbers.

“Flagged Down,” a rock band of eighth-grade boys from Sea Crest Middle School, will close the show both days with three of their original songs. Devin Menzies (guitar, lead vocals), Daniel Shafer-Shorr (base guitar) and Gabe Carhart (drums) are passionate about their music and aren’t timid about wearing their hearts on their sleeves.

Since 1999, the Coastal Theatre Conservatory, under the auspices of the Coastal Repertory Theatre and the direction of Michael Lederman, has provided an after-school program of top-quality dramatic training for young people ages 4-20. The Half Moon Bay Art & Pumpkin Festival is major fundraiser for the theater.