HIGH LIFE : Arts School Gets Top Marks : Students, Faculty Alike Pleased With Their Roles at ‘Fame-West’

In between classes, these high school students show off new dance moves, recite lines from a play and just plain act silly.

During classes, they rehearse scenes, concentrate their energy on a single dance step and just plain sweat--a lot.

No, they aren’t cast members of “Fame,” but they’re close.

They are the talented students of the Orange County High School of the Arts, which is in its first year of operation.

Known affectionately by students and instructors as “Fame-West,” the school is located on the campus of Los Alamitos High School.

Ralph Opacic, founder and director of the program, said: “I like the comparison between the TV show (‘Fame’) and our program because it gives you a picture in your mind . . . an over-glorified one, but also a positive one. I take that as a compliment.”

Opacic, originally from Virginia, was graduated from Cal State Long Beach with an AB in music and a teaching credential. He has taught vocal music at Los Alamitos High for the past five years.

The 125 students enrolled in the arts school are from 16 different school districts in Orange County and neighboring communities, such as Long Beach and Whittier. They were selected on the basis of their applications, two letters of recommendation and auditions.

With permission of their school districts, most of these students attend Los Alamitos full time. But there are still about 40 students who attend after regular school only, either by choice or because their high schools have not allowed them to transfer.

The arts school offers courses in dance, theater, music, visual arts and technical theater. The program, which lasts two to three hours after regular school every day, also gives students opportunities to attend special seminars, lectures and workshops with top professionals in the business as well as be observed by talent scouts who are sometimes invited. At the end of the school year, students are given 10 credits in fine arts.

Opacic explained the reason for starting the school. “I saw a desperate need for the school here in Orange County,” he said. “There are schools of the arts in New York, North Carolina, Illinois, San Diego, San Francisco and Los Angeles. The students here (in Orange County) who are really advanced can now have the opportunity to develop their talents to their fullest capabilities.”

The staff of arts school is noteworthy. Many of the teachers have been recommended by universities and performing agencies, while others were chosen by an interview process. All 25 members of the staff hold master’s degrees or equivalent honors or credentials in their respective fields. More important, they are all working professionals in the industry.

Among the teachers are Doug Shaeffer, who is the director of the Curtain Call Dinner Theater, a professional dinner theater located in Tustin, and Anne Edwards, a former drama teacher at the Chicago School for the Performing Arts.

“I think the school has an exceptional staff,” said David Green, the arts school’s director of music theater. “We have professional directors and choreographers from all over Southern California who are almost donating time to teach these students.”

Green’s experience in the field includes directing the Young Americans, an international song and dance company, for eight years in Europe, Japan and the United States.

In January, the arts school students put together their first performance, “Mary Poppins,” under Green’s direction. The cast rehearsed two to three hours after its regular classes were dismissed and also worked on several Saturdays to perfect the musical. Tickets for the original three-performance run were sold out in no time, and a Sunday matinee was added.

Future performances include “Chicago,” a musical vaudeville written by Bob (“All That Jazz”) Fosse, April 7-10, and a dance recital, which will open the first week of May. Both will be performed in the newly constructed Margaret A. Webb Performing Arts Center on the Los Alamitos campus.

Said Green: “I am having as much fun as they (the students) are. We’re developing raw talents, and by the time they graduate, they’ll have more knowledge in the field of art than any other high school graduates going into that field.”

David Sidoni, 17, who is a senior attending Los Alamitos and the arts school, said: “It’s time-consuming, but it is worth it because the instructors are realistic and creative. You learn a dance, rather than about a dance.”

Sidoni works at Disneyland as an entertainer outside of school, and, after graduation, hopes to work at Tokyo Disneyland and attend UC Irvine and major in musical theater.

Further compliments came from senior Teddy Hisquierdo, 18: “The program is great! It’s free--you gotta be crazy not to take advantage of it. (The instructors) are our friends as well as our teachers. They teach us how to apply the talent to the outside world.”

Sophomore Jacole Norton, 15, who transferred to Los Alamitos from Woodbridge High in Irvine in order to attend the arts school, said: “Because of this program, I don’t go out often on weekends. I don’t get to do a lot of things, but even if I wasn’t going here, I would still be spending an equal amount of time going to a studio somewhere else, and it would cost a lot of money. Because I keep my grades up, my options are open, but this (acting) is my primary interest.”

Like Norton, many students at the school, though mainly interested in the arts, have other dreams and plans.

Freshman Kim Levin, 15, shyly said: “You know, I might turn out to be a psychologist. . . . I’m kind of undecided. Either way, I am very glad to be in the program, because in here, I learned how to deal with people and a lot about myself. David Green makes you feel real good about yourself.”

The fact that so many of the students are from outside the Los Alamitos district caused a couple of problems. First, transportation was an inconvenience for those students too young to drive.

Sophomore John Nassab, 15, who lives in Orange, explained that he solved the problem by arranging a car pool with a few of his friends. “Our parents take turns driving,” he said. “A lot of the students are making similar arrangements, so one parent does not have to drive just one student all of the time.”

The other problem was not as simply solved as the first. When a person moves to a new school, it can take some time to adjust.

“It took a while for the school (the student body) to accept us,” Hisquierdo said. “We were new; we were different from them because we were the students of the school of the arts. But they got to know us, and now things are getting better.”