Scene Activation in Composer

The scene’s of my game flows as follows:   main.lua ----menu.lua—levelTracker.lua—level1.lua or level2.lua etc.

I also have:

score.lua (table for storing the score for each level.

mode.lua (a table storing 0 or 1 to activate a level with 1 meaning active)

star.lua (a table showing that stores the number of stars for each level based on the players score).

When I start out, I press the play game button at the menu screen which takes me to levelTracker.  At levelTracker.lua I can press the active level buttons and it takes me to that level of game play.

Problem:   The purpose of the loadStars function is to pull the number of stars that should be displayed for a level that is active.  By default if a level is not active there are not stars to be retrieved.  In levelTracker.lua,  I’m loading the number of stars applicable to the level from star.lua,  Also, I have the display object for stars set up with an Alpha = 0 in the Create Scene section.  But the stars are not displaying on the screen even after I change the alpha to 1 in the loadStars function.

 Its as if the code for loadStars() is never being triggered to start once I get to levelTracker.lua from menu lua.   I need the stars  just appear without any action such as a button being pressed.

Here is my code for level one which is an active level:

local function loadStars()

    if starL1 == 1 then
       oneStar.x = 70; oneStar.y = 365
       oneStar.alpha = 1
  
   elseif starL1 == 2 then
       oneStar.x = 70; oneStar.y = 365
       oneStar.alpha = 1
  
       twoStar.x=95; twoStar.y=365
       twoStar.alpha = 1
  
    elseif smileyFaceL1 == 3 then
       oneStar.x = 70; oneStar.y = 365
       oneStar.alpha = 1
  
       twoStar.x=95; twoStar.y=365
       twoStar.alpha = 1
  
       threeStar.x = 120; threeStar.y = 365
       threeStar.alpha = 1
 
    end
end

Question:

What should I do to make the levelTracker.lua perform the star function?  Among other things, I’ve tried a runtime - enterFrame but it goes haywire and goes on endlessly.   

(I only have one star PNG so right now I have multiple lines to get to three stars)

I appreciate any help!!