Theater Review

Tom Titus

The the Academy for Performing Arts headquartered at Huntington Beach

High School, now nearly a decade old, gathers arts-minded students from

miles around and converges them into special classes in theater, music

and dance -- as well as a full dose of the state-required curriculum --

with the goal of preparing tomorrow’s Broadway and Hollywood performers.

At the center of all this talent is its artistic director, Diane

Makas-Colwell, who also chairs the dance department and is a renowned

choreographer. She’s starting her sixth year with APA and her enthusiasm

for the program is contagious.

“This program is designed for students who already have (artistic)

skills,” Colwell explained. “We develop and refine it. The graduates all

leave here with head shots and resumes.”

With enrollment in the low 400s for the upcoming term (“We’re running

out of space. We had to turn over 100 kids away,” she laments), Colwell

and her staff of 10 professional instructors will have their hands quite

full. And she’s under no illusion that all of her students will pursue

professional careers in the arts after graduation.

“About 50% of them continue in the arts,” she said. “But lots of them

will pursue other careers and come back to tell us how their experience

at APA gave them confidence, which they used in other areas.”

Additionally, she said, APA students “find opportunities they wouldn’t

get in a normal high school.” These include field trips to view

professionally performed plays and musicals and guest artists conducting

master classes in their specialty.

The Huntington Beach program, one of 110 APAs in the United States, is

supported by the Huntington Beach Union High School District as well as

the APA Foundation, a tax-exempt corporation, which raises in the

neighborhood of $90,000 a year for its programs. And the Disney

Foundation now offers three $1,000 college scholarships for arts-focused

students.

The kids also take their show on the road. They’re planning a touring

project in which the school’s October musical, “Once on This Island,”

will be performed at middle and elementary schools in the area.

This should prove an effective recruiting campaign and Colwell is

hoping to launch an exchange program with the APA in Hawaii.

Apart from their drama, music or dance focus, APA students must take

an additional 40 credits in the more traditional curriculum. At

graduation, Colwell said, honor students wear a burgundy cord on their

gowns that’s known informally as the “Oscar cord.”

And now APA isn’t strictly limited to performing arts. Beginning this

fall, classes will be offered in media arts under the direction of John

Colby.

And what awaits the Huntington Beach APA grad in the big, wide world?

Well, one student, T.J. Dawson, isn’t waiting. He’s taken a leave of

absence to play Roger in a seven-month professional tour of the musical

“Grease.”

Graduates will be well prepared for college. “We just rewrote all of

our courses to align with University of California requirements,” Colwell

noted.

And, when one of the grads inevitably lands in a touring production of

“Fame,” he or she will feel right at home.