Urban rampages. Winter wildfires. Surging variants. Betty White’s death. There’s just not a lot to feel hopeful about as we flip the calendar to 2022. You’ve heard the joke: 2021 and 2022 are sitting in a bar when 2021 brags, “I was the worst year ever!” 2022 just laughs and says … “Hold my beer!”

But then there’s Eli Testa, a hopeful 15-year-old sophomore at Highlands Ranch High School. Eli hasn’t been trodding the boards for as long as, say, Mel Brooks, but consider this: How many actors can say they have reprised their signature role — by age 10?

Eli first played Augustus Gloop in “Roald Dahl’s Willie Wonka” at age 7 for the Performing Arts Academy, a youth outreach program in Highlands Ranch. He must have made a nasty-good impression as that obese, greedy, gluttonous little scamp because, three years later, Eli took that very same not-so-skinny-dip in the Chocolate River in a much higher-stakes production at the Vintage Theatre in Aurora.

The kid already has 24 stage credits in big-name musicals like “Spamalot,” “Guys and Dolls” and “Peter Pan.” His first stage role was back in kindergarten, but his parents, who met as music and dance majors at the University of Colorado in Boulder, say he started performing the day he was born.

“My dad says I was doing monologues while sitting in my crib before I even knew how to talk,” Eli said. His source material? “Probably Dr. Seuss,” he says with a laugh.

Eli is the rare kid who knows exactly what he wants to do with his life. He’s an actor, and he will be, as the gang-banger Riff says in “West Side Story,” “from womb to tomb.”

He’s also uncommonly focused — not only on his own goals, but on doing good works and making our troubled world a better place. When the pandemic shutdown began, Eli envisioned a way he might both create a performance opportunity for his peers and raise money for a good cause at the same time. He would organize a cabaret that would be entirely produced and presented by a cast and crew under age 18, with all proceeds going to the Denver Actors Fund.

This news got my attention because … I started that nonprofit, and since 2013, we have made $900,000 available to help Colorado theater artists with their medical and pandemic-related expenses. I learned early on that when a young person comes to you with a plan to make you some money, you listen. Because people under 18 have raised about 20% of everything we have ever generated.

Eli believes “The Future is Bright,” and that’s exactly what he’s named his production, which will take place over four performances Jan. 7-9 at the Parker Performing Arts School. He has assembled a company of about 32 students from 11 area high schools in the making of a show that has been crafted from Day 1 with one creative goal in mind: “We want people to walk out saying, “That was a great show,’ not, ‘That was a great show for a bunch of kids,’” Eli said.

Eli has been working on “The Future is Bright” fairly nonstop since February. That means auditions. Assembling a cast and creative team. Securing a rehearsal space and a performance venue. Creating a budget — and raising about $1,100 to cover pre-production costs. Creating a program and a marketing campaign. And crafting the actual cabaret, which is much more involved than just a series of individual showtunes. “There are a lot of group numbers we have been working on,” he said.

At the busiest time of their young lives, the ensemble has been meeting to rehearse most every Saturday since August. And again — no adults allowed. That means the directors, choreographers and musical supervisor are all student contemporaries.

It’s not like Eli didn’t have a deep pool of available adult talent to draw from, like the couple who happen to share his home address. His father, Dan Testa, was an accomplished actor in the years just before Eli came along. If such a thing as “a capella groupies” exists, then Dan needs no introduction to them. He was a member of a group called Table for Five, which set songs by Talking Heads and the Violent Femmes to killer harmonies. He also made his mark in several productions at the Country Dinner Playhouse in the early 2000s. As the theater critic for The Denver Post, I wrote that Dan “broke glass” singing the high notes in “To Life” from “Fiddler on the Roof. He and his wife, Mary Kennedy, then broke the mold when they made Eli.

“With everything going on in the world, and with the performing community being hit so hard by the pandemic, Eli wanted to put together something to show that the performing arts are not going away — and that his generation will continue to persevere,” said Dan, who chipped in on some of the pre-production costs, which still could not buy him a song in the show. No adults means no adults.

“I just really wanted to spotlight the vast talent and determination in this company of teenagers,” Eli said. “I also wanted to prove that even though we are younger, we can do just as much as adults do for the benefit of this community.”

Eli was reminded of the greater good of his creative and philanthropic mission in November when he learned of the death of his mentor. Gary Lewis was a flight nurse, youth minister and the former Artistic Director of Inspire Theater Company in Parker, and Eli performed for him in “Newsies” and other shows. “His passing really hit home for me,” Eli said. “When he died, I saw that his family asked for people to donate to the Denver Actors Fund. He is one of the people who inspired me to do this show in the first place, so it means all the more to me now.”

It’s hard for Eli to imagine getting his life back next month after investing one of his 15 years into this one thing. Right now, like any good producer, he’s just focused on putting butts in the seats and maximizing his eventual donation to the Denver Actors Fund. “If everything breaks our way, we could be looking at raising $15,000,” he says. And that money will make a lot of futures brighter.

“No matter how bleak and grim it seems out there right now, we want to be a symbol of hope,” he said. “We want to show people that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. We want to make people smile and appreciate life, even if it’s only for two hours, because that’s what theater has done for us. And if that’s what we can give back to people, then there is nothing more special than that.”

Box in assets

“The Future is Bright”

• What: A student-performed musical cabaret

• Performances: 7 p.m. Friday, Jan. 7; 2 and 7 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 8; and 2 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 9

• Where: Parker Performing Arts School, 15035 Compark Blvd. • Tickets: $10 at eventbrite.com

Denver Gazette contributing arts columnist John Moore is an award-winning journalist who was named one of the 10 most influential theater critics by American Theatre Magazine. He is now producing independent journalism as part of his own company, Moore Media, and is the founder of the Denver Actors Fund.