Forget your classic image and theories about the seven dwarfs. When the Honolulu Theatre for Youth kicks off its 2006-07 season tonight with "Snow White" at Tenney Theatre, the forest-dwelling maiden isn't a Disney saint, the tale is told in rhyme, and — heigh-ho! — one actor plays all seven dwarfs.

Hermen "Junior" Tesoro, an 11-year veteran of the HTY acting company, portrays the dwarfs in a daring casting challenge in HTY's retelling based on a commissioned script by Hester Kamin. Tesoro also plays an eighth role — the hunter, Snow White's love interest.

While he changes garb to play the hunter, for the little guys Tesoro relies on body language, voice shadings and acting skills to create seven distinct characters. And forget the Disney names and personas such as Bashful and Sneezy.

"We had to figure out a way that was easy for me (to interpret the roles), and the director (Harry Wong III, of Kumu Kahua) came up with characteristics of personalities, based on what the playwright distinguished," said Tesoro.

The familiar names aren't even mentioned so Tesoro assigned them numbers.

"No. 1 is the leader — he knows what direction to go, he marches, he's introduced by saluting.

"No. 2 plays with his fingers, making rhymes.

"No. 3 is supposed to be fat and cheerful, happy-go-lucky and slower in cadence.

"No. 4 is kinda goofy, with a goofy laugh.

"No. 5 is angry, but the funny thing about him is that he likes to write ballads, so that's endearing.

"No. 6 is the romantic in the group.

"No. 7 is totally clueless."

HTY artistic director Eric Johnson wanted to give Tesoro and Wong a chance to work together — "and to bring out Junior's crazy talent," he said.

After watching a kiddie audience react to the production for the first time on Monday, Johnson declared: "I think it worked out quite nicely. Junior does such a good job; he's a fantastic actor ... in a virtuoso performance. And the whole thing is written in verse, all poetry, with six of the dwarfs able to rhyme — and the seventh yet to figure it out. I think one of the fun things about the dwarfs is that they, too, are little people (like the HTY youth-oriented school audiences). Being little people doesn't make them any less powerful or potent, and Junior is an advocate of theirs."

Besides voice controls, Tesoro said the show's creative blocking enables one dwarf to talk to another invisible one. "I may be behind the tree, and speak from the right, then the left," he said.

Does Tesoro have a favorite? "I think if I could be only one, I'd like to be No. 5," he said. "He's the angry one; you think he's a stick-in-the-mud, but he's also a songwriter with a softer side."

In this version, the evil stepmother isn't the only character who's vain — a smart Snow White is also prone to the deadly sin.

Tesoro said he adores fleshing out challenging scripts. "I like the process of working with others, seeing different things come together, finding new things," he said. "And a happy accident made No. 5 a songwriter; it's something I did in rehearsals that the playwright liked, so now, I do a ballad (as No. 5) in the show."

Reach Wayne Harada at wharada@honoluluadvertiser.com.