High School of the Arts Is Ready for Its Coppola Close-Up

It was an offer no arts educator could refuse.

A representative for Francis Ford Coppola, maker of “The Godfather” movies, called principal Ralph Opacic to ask whether the writer-director could come to the Orange County High School of the Arts and borrow some of the student talent there to rehearse scenes for a film script he is working on.

“I would say it took a good 30 to 35 seconds” to agree, Opacic said Friday, laughing over the telephone from his office at Los Alamitos High School.

Since that call a few weeks ago, Opacic said, Coppola has been to the campus twice auditioning students and alumni for roles in a workshop performance of numbers from his planned musical remake of “Gidget,” the 1959 movie--and later television series--about a Southern California beach girl.

Besides the cachet of working with Coppola, the school will benefit financially. The filmmaker, whose credits also include “Patton” (as screenwriter), “Finian’s Rainbow” and “Apocalypse Now,” will speak at a $75-to $125-per-person fund-raising luncheon and reception for the arts school.

“I think it’s a tremendous compliment to the school,” Opacic said. “For a young aspiring singer-actor to have an opportunity to work with somebody with the credentials of Mr. Coppola is an experience no one will forget.”

Five workshop performances of “Gidget” are scheduled Aug. 3-6 at the 600-seat Margaret A. Webb Performing Arts Center at Los Alamitos High School. Whether the shows are open to the public or limited to an invitation-only audience has yet to be decided, Opacic said.

The surprise, unsolicited association with Coppola came in a roundabout way, Opacic said. John Farrar, who is writing the songs

for “Gidget,” has friends whose children have attended the arts school, Opacic said.

Coppola “obviously is looking for an age-appropriate group” to test-drive his material, Opacic said, and the arts school got the nod.

A staffer at Coppola’s San Francisco-based production company, American Zoetrope, said Friday that all details about the workshops are being withheld until a July 24 news conference Coppola plans to give at Los Alamitos High School. Opacic said the school is honoring Coppola’s request not to give details about the auditions or the “Gidget” workshops until then.

The Coppola excitement comes at an already fevered time for the arts school. Housed since its founding in 1987 at Los Alamitos High School, the self-administered public charter school will open a new high-rise campus of its own in September in downtown Santa Ana. The move from cramped quarters will allow the arts school to double its student body from 425 last school year to an anticipated 800 to 850 in September.