A young man who spent years bringing light and sound to the American River College stage was pronounced brain-dead Thursday morning, four days after a car accident killed his friend and left him tenuously clinging to life.

Andy Hoover, 24, was sitting in the back seat of a 1986 Toyota driven by 18-year-old Jenna Faeth, who died in Sunday's single-car crash. Police say the car drifted off Highway 99 near Madera, then overturned several times.

The two theater students, along with Hoover's girlfriend and another friend, had been heading back from a theater festival at California State University, Los Angeles. Though tired, they were eager to return to school for a Sunday evening rehearsal of the play "Kimchee and Chitlins," said 19-year-old Johnny Sittisin, who, along with Hoover's girlfriend, Brittany Baskerville, was injured in the crash.

Hoover was to have been in charge of sound for the production – a satiric comedy about a racial clash in Brooklyn. Faeth had the lead role.

On Thursday, friends described Hoover as a funny, brilliant, deeply generous young man who never stopped talking for long.

Bethany Deal, a 21-year-old theater student, said Hoover was "the blood in the veins of this department."

"He was a brilliant star, a bright and shiny star in our world," she said.

The loss of Hoover sent new shock waves of grief rippling through the college theater, where the play's cast and crew were pushing hard to ready themselves for their first performance tonight.

The show will be dedicated to the two students.

While Faeth had been a new talent in the American River College theater scene, Hoover was a longtime fixture. His mother, Pamela Downs, has taught at the school for at least 15 years, friends said.

As a small boy, Hoover worked as an usher, hung out with actors and even held small parts in the plays his mother directed.

As he got older, he became more interested in the technical aspects of theater – mastering sound and lighting as well as building sets and props.

"He got to live in a world of imagination," said Terri Brindisi, who befriended Hoover in the first grade and considers him her brother.

For Hoover, all the world was, indeed, a stage. He embraced the beauty of life – and its strangeness.

He spoke in Andyisms: quirky, silly comments like "your mom is your face." He loved Red Vines and Sierra Mist and eating bagels from the inside out. He dressed as Columbus on Columbus Day, as a pirate when he felt like it, and he nurtured aspirations to someday become a Civil War re-enactor.

Sometimes, for an adventure, he would head out with friends on road trips to explore construction sites and abandoned buildings. Sometimes they'd just flip a coin and drive.

A proud Eagle Scout, he preferred to sleep under the stars.

He made other people laugh constantly, said his father, Rick. And it was humor that made you feel good.

"I've spit soda out of my nose with that boy more times than my nostrils care to remember," Brindisi said.

On Thursday, his girlfriend, Brittany Baskerville, wrote a note on the "ARC Theatre Vigil" page on MySpace.com:

"At 3:30 Sunday morning, he climbed into the back seat with me, put on his seat belt, kissed my head, and fell asleep holding my hand. I had no idea that would be my last real moment with him … He once told me that he never wanted to be one of those people who looked back after a tragedy and said, 'I never told them I loved them enough.' He wanted to be the one who said, 'I told them every day how wonderful they were and how lucky I was to have them.'"

Hoover embraced life – and everyone and everything in it.

It made perfect sense, then, that his friends sent prayers to him Wednesday while standing in a park watching the lunar eclipse, reading poetry and singing Celtic songs to the moon.

And it makes sense, too, that at tonight's opening show – rather than retreating into their grief – family and friends will celebrate the memory of Jenna Faeth and Andy Hoover in the place they both loved best.

Call The Bee's Jocelyn Wiener, (916) 321-1967.