Orange County Gets a Shot at ‘Fame’ : Performing Arts School to Open

It wasn’t exactly like a scene out of television’s “Fame,� with students joyously singing and dancing up and down the hallways.

But there was no denying the elation that music and drama students at Los Alamitos High School felt this week upon learning that the long-awaited Orange County High School of the Performing Arts will become a reality this fall--on their campus.

The new school-within-a-school, to be modeled after the New York High School for the Performing Arts, will be open to all promising high school visual and performing arts students living in Orange County and neighboring Long Beach, who audition and meet other requirements.

The school, the first of its kind in Orange County, will be the sixth specialized performing arts school in California, joining others in San Diego, Los Angeles, Fresno, Sacramento and San Francisco.

“This is a dream come true for this community and this high school,� said Jean Cross, the school district project specialist and co-writer of the grant proposal funding the school. She said there has been longtime community support throughout Orange County for specialized training in the performing and visual arts. “There are 340,000 kids in Orange County schools, and we didn’t have one program in advance training in performing arts.�

With South Coast Repertory Theatre, the Orange County Philharmonic, the Pacific Symphony, the Orange County Performing Arts Center and other cultural developments, Cross said, “it just seemed a natural to develop a high school for the performing arts in the county.�

Los Alamitos High was selected because of its strength in the performing arts, she said.

School officials had been notified more than a week ago that the district had received a $194,700 grant from the state Department of Education to develop the performing arts school.

But they had to wait for final district school board approval of the project Monday night before announcing it to the students. By Tuesday morning word was spreading through Los Alamitos High like news of an open-casting call on Broadway.

“The first thing I did was hit the ceiling--I went crazy,� said David Sidoni, a 17-year-old junior who is taking two chorus classes and who has worked summers as a dancer at Disneyland.

“I was shocked,� said Susan Egan, 17, a junior with ambitions for performing in musical theater. “Everyone just kind of sat there for a while.�

Julie Seaborn, 16, another musical theater aspirant, said: “It doesn’t seem real! I can’t believe it’s actually happening to our school.�

Vocal music teacher Ralph Opacic, who co-wrote the grant proposal, heard about the board’s approval at 11 a.m. Tuesday and immediately informed his freshman chorus class.

“They responded with cheers,� he said. “We’ve been sitting on this 10 days just waiting to explode. I must have spent 20 minutes answering questions on how do they get in.�

Principal Carol Hart views the performing arts school as a “wonderful opportunity� for students.

“With greater emphasis on academic graduation requirements, many schools are limiting elective programs,� she said. “This will enable students, within a school day, to retain their interests in drama and music and complete graduation requirements for college.�

Plans call for allowing 150 students into the school the first year, with that number doubling to 300 within three years, Cross said.

Students will take regular general education classes, with an additional 15 hours per week of specialized instruction in the arts. These courses will be similar to those found in professional art institutes, she said, and a close relationship between instruction and performance will be encouraged.

Areas of advanced study will include chorus, drama, band, orchestra, dance, stagecraft, art, graphics, photography and video production.

Hart said that a staff for the new school has not yet been selected and that planners are considering “two options for students outside the district: One would be for students to attend Los Alamitos High School full time and the other would be for students to enroll in the performing arts school for 15 hours per week.�

The school plans to call on Hollywood agents to come on campus to talk to the students, in addition to professional artists-in-residence who will teach classes, Hart said. “So there will be natural leads into the industry as well.�

Graduates will earn a performing arts certificate in addition to their high school diploma.

Brochures will be available this summer. Student selection for the program will include a letter of recommendation, interview, audition (for performing arts students) and project review (for visual arts students).

Cross said students attending Laurel Continuation High School in Los Alamitos--and other students “at risk� of dropping out of school--will be given enrollment priority.

“One of our main goals is to keep (these) kids in school,� she said. “The performing arts will give them something to cling on to.�

The idea to create the countywide high school of performing arts was planted about three years ago when car dealer Lew Webb and his family donated $30,000 for refurbishing the high school’s own Performing Arts Center, which is available for the community and school district for joint projects.

Opacic said that over the past three years the school has been adding classes in visual and performing arts to support the growth of the school’s center.

“We have the basic framework of the (School of the Performing Arts) program already developed,� he said.

Grant funds will be used to complete the remodeling of the current 750-seat center, including elevating and adding more permanent seats to the auditorium and improving lighting, sound and recording equipment.

Cross said funds also will be used to develop advanced training programs in the performing and visual arts (music, theater, art, video and dance) with an emphasis on production and performance and for hiring professional artists as instructors. Negotiations are under way with Los Alamitos community cable TV for the building of a video production center on campus for student and community use. The facility will enable School of the Performing Arts students to learn acting for television, producing, directing and scriptwriting, she said.

Drama coordinator Judy Trujillo said she was “overwhelmed� by the news that the Orange County High School of the Performing Arts will become a reality in September.

“The thing about the Los Alamitos school district is we’re really small, but it seems we’ve got more than our share of talented kids,� she said. “The quality we get here is excellent. And the chance to have a good facility with the right kind of backup is going to make life so much easier. We’ve glued and wired and pasted an bubble-gummed it for so long. This will give us a chance to do the kind of quality work we want to do.�

Trujillo acknowledges that the new school will provide a good head start for students interested in pursuing the performing arts as a career.

She said, however, that “I don’t push a lot of kids to go into the theater as a profession because it’s such a difficult choice. This will give kids a chance to really work at what they love early on and to make some decisions earlier if they want to continue it as a career or as a hobby for life or just love to go to the theater and to be a support for the arts.�

Several recent Los Alamitos High graduates have gone to advance study in the performing arts. They include 1986 graduates Darrin Glaudini and Malcolm Womack, who are studying at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York.

Another 1986 graduate, Heather Hoppus, now at UC Irvine, has been selected to study dance at the American Ballet Theatre in New York.

And many in the current crop of performing arts students at Los Alamitos share those ambitions.

“My dream is to perform on Broadway--anywhere in New York,� said junior Julie Seaborn. “I’ve always wanted to be a ham as long as I can remember. I know I’m one of many who feel this (the school) is going to open up so many doors for us. I only wish I had more years here.�

David Sidoni, who also wants to go to New York to act, said having the performing arts certificate will be useful for college and resumes.

“When someone find out I’ve gone to the Orange County High School of the Performing Arts, they’ll know I’m well trained,� he said. “It’s a great opportunity.�