Arts high schools in Southern California came about in the mid-1980s, an era plagued by vicious cutbacks in high school arts programs. While the '90s saw limited improvement in arts funding, current budget crises are once again forcing draconian measures, placing arts programs back on the chopping block. Yet dedicated young performers now have two well-established arts high schools to consider as an alternative means of getting the training they need for a career in the arts.
These high schools are not for everyone. Most of their students are ambitious and highly focused, and have a dedication to a specific discipline that is rare for their age. Attending an arts high school will also mean long hours and potentially long commutes. Students must perform a difficult balancing act with their lives, juggling college preparatory studies with their conservatory work, as well as rehearsals. But if you chat with students at the Los Angeles County High School For the Arts--located on the campus of Cal State Los Angeles--or the Santa Ana–based Orange County High School for the Arts, you immediately realize there is no place these students would rather be.
"I really found a home and my niche here, a real place to have great friends who are interested in what you are doing and are focused," says Brittany Cornelius, who has attended OCHSA for the past four years. "Even though it's not your typical high school and we don't have football games and cheerleading squads, we have so many other wonderful opportunities. I don't know any other student at any other high school who got to have a master class with Jerry Herman or Cy Coleman--and we have. I think we often take for granted how amazing this school is--how you can walk down the halls, and there are people dancing, people singing."
Carly Menkin, a senior at OCHSA in musical theatre, agrees: "A lot of our friends who came here and have gone on to great schools--NYU, Boston Conservatory, UCLA--when they come back and visit they say, 'Treasure OCHSA because you will never find another program like this.'"
Menkin admits she had to do a little bit of convincing to get her parents' approval. "My parents were skeptical in the beginning," says Menkin, "but I think once they came, saw what was here, saw an open house, went to a couple of shows, saw the quality of the students and the productions.... I mean, the first show I saw at the school was directed by Francis Ford Coppola."
Students at LACHSA are no less enthusiastic about their choice to forego the "typical" high school experience. "I don't think I've missed anything at all," says LACHSA theatre student Rafael Goldstein. "We still have the usual dances, and all that stuff that makes a high school experience. We have that extra component of being able to perform every day. And I think that's been very beneficial. It's really comforting to know that everyone around you has the same kind of passion for what they are doing as you do. It makes it very easy to work as an ensemble. Nobody there is going to slack off or make it an unpleasant experience, because we all have the same goals."
"I could have always gone to Santa Monica high school," says Amanda Payton, a theatre student at LACHSA. "But everyone here is really serious about what they are learning; otherwise they wouldn't be making the commute out here. We have a long day. So the students who attend are all extremely motivated. Our teachers are as well."
A typical day at OCHSA begins at 8:30 with academic classes in the morning. Afternoon arts classes run until 4:50. Then evening rehearsals--which may take place at a local theatre off-campus--run from 6 to 9 p.m. During tech week, rehearsals can run as late as 10 p.m. The producing schedule is rigorous. This year's shows alone have included Godspell, West Side Story, The House of Blue Leaves, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and The Dining Room.
"It's very hard," said Menkin, who has a 25-minute commute from Irvine. "The academics are very strenuous as well, so you just have to learn how to balance things out properly. Most of us older students drive, and we just help out the younger students. We understand that it's very hard for their parents to schlep back and forth. The [performance] venues can also be 30 to 45 minutes away [from campus.] So it's tough."
"We actually have students who commute from San Diego, Los Angeles, Riverside," said Cornelius. "We have kids who take the first train out from San Diego each day and the last train home each night."
LACHSA students follow a similar schedule, with class from 8 a.m. until 4 p.m. However, at LACHSA rehearsals are part of their afternoon class schedule and most productions take place second semester. "It takes some getting used to," admits Goldstein. "But once you are in it, you just roll with it." This year, LACHSA's shows include Pippin, The Crucible, Orpheus, Tartuffe, Footloose, one-act play festivals, and Grease.
Both schools offer a full college preparatory academic program. Yet in terms of the arts training they offer, there are key differences in the focus of these two schools.
Dr. Ralph Opacic founded OCSHA in 1987 and still serves as the school's executive director and president, as well as its artistic director. "The school was created to provide the gifted and talent students of Southern California with pre-professional training in the arts," explains Opacic. "LACHSA's focus is much more theory-based. Ours is much more dealing with pre-professional training. For those students who are passionate about acting and singing and want to pursue it as a career, we want to give them a sense of what it's like to work in the industry."
Opacic explains his motivation for setting up this kind of industry-focused model. "It's largely because of the experience I had when I went through college. College didn't really prepare me for a career in the arts. It gave me the theoretical background, but it didn't help me in a hands-on, "how to make a living with my art" way. That is at the center of everything we do. That is what would make us different from any other arts school in the country. So some of the key components we created were to have working artist teachers interfacing with the kids on a daily basis, bringing in guest artists, master teachers, who are actually working in those fields, and then partnering with our regional arts partners to build opportunities for students to get pre-professional performance experience." Guest artists have included Herman and Coleman, as well as Jason Graae, Karen Morrow, Don Pippin, and Matt Morrison. Last year Broadway performer Susan Egan served as acting artistic director of the school.
LACHSA, founded in 1985, takes a different approach. "Our program is process-oriented, not product-oriented," says senior program specialist Lois Hunter. "We focus on the developmental part of the actor. The school is kind of based on the conservatory framework like Juilliard, where kids are given intensive instruction in four areas: voice and speech, literature criticism, movement, and acting." Third- and fourth-year students are trained in the method developed by theatre director Tadashi Suzuki and receive classes in commedia dell'arte, as well. "Philosophically what we are trying to do is to train their instrument to the fullest," says Hunter. Hunter pointed out that LACHSA is generously funded by the Doris Duke Foundation, the Annenberg Foundation, Wally and Sheila Weisman, and Della Koenig.
LACHSA's location requires students to have a certain amount of added maturity. "This is a tough environment for a 14-year-old," says Hunter. "We are on a college campus. So we have to look for kids who are really self-motivated, who have a lot of discipline so they are not wandering all around the campus when they should be in class."
While the focus is on theatre acting, both schools have classes in acting on-camera as well as film and television divisions, where acting students can get experience working on student films.
Another thing these two schools share: competitive entrance standards. Opacic says he sees about 300 applications a year for 75 to 100 spots in the OCSHA theatre program. Auditions require students to perform a monologue and a song, improvise, and complete an interview. While OCSHA accepts applications year-round, auditions are in March and April. Students are notified May 1 of their acceptance. Students grades seven through 12 can apply.
Hunter says she sees 200 applicants per year for some 40 theatre places at LACHSA, which takes students grades nine through 12. Theatre students are to audition with two contrasting monologues--one contemporary and one classical--and complete an interview. This year LACHSA auditions will be held April 18.
For more information on these programs, visit www.ocsarts .net (OCHSA) and www.lafn.org/artshigh/index.html (LACHSA). BSW