“Traffic Jam” Gains New Meaning on Arts Students’ Bus

For students at Orange County High School of the Arts in Santa Ana, the school bus is more than a ride home; it’s a rolling jam session.

In the last row, Joseph Garcia, 17, and Dennis Lakomski, 15, are playing guitar and singing a song from the punk band blink 182. Jenn Stein, 16, with a pierced lip, fishnet stockings, a black dog collar necklace and silver glitter eye shadow, does an improv monologue, pretending she’s a cowboy.

Two rows up, Brittany Carr, 16, is delicately singing a duet -- “Part of Your World” from the Little Mermaid -- with Brett Girard, 15. Daniel Palin, 14, belts out “I’ll Always Love You,” by Whitney Houston.

Across from him, Crystal Aronson, 16, sings a tune from “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,” a show she has been in “like, so many times.” Showing amazing discipline amid the cacophony, each holds his or her own melody, filling the bus with multiple layers of music.

Such is the daily show aboard this moving stage as students take a 45-minute bus ride to central drop-off points in either Rossmoor, near Seal Beach, or Irvine, from where they get the rest of the way home on their own.

The students live in 92 cities, including as far away as San Diego, and their willingness to make the commute demonstrates their commitment and dedication to the arts-oriented public high school, said school spokeswoman Cambria Morgan.

The school’s 1,200 students gain admission through auditions. Students take academic classes until 2 p.m., and they then study music, dance and theater until about 5 p.m. Parents are asked to donate $4,000 annually to help pay for the arts classes.

At day’s end, 101 students cue up for their bus ride home -- a service for which they pay $1,200 a year. And they make the most of that commute.

Even before they board the buses, they’re practicing their dance moves and songs outside the school building near Main and 10th streets Once they clamber inside the big yellow buses, the show’s already underway.

As the bus pulls away from the curb in downtown Santa Ana, students are rehearsing lines for an upcoming play, practicing improv or selecting songs for a future performance.

“It’s nice because we get feedback about what we’re doing,” said budding actress and singer Carr, who was Miss Seal Beach 2002 and has had minor roles on the daytime soap opera “Days of Our Lives” and other television shows. “We are a bus family. We’re really close because we have from there to here to do things together every day.”

Some students are debating which songs to perform when they audition for the school production of “West Side Story.” A group of girls displays synchronized yoga hand positions.

“We do a lot of stuff you just don’t see at other schools,” said Xiomara Crespa, 14, who’s heading home to Long Beach.

Bus driver Anita Hernandez is a four-year veteran of this road show, and said that for safety’s sake, she manages to tune out the commotion. “My first year, I had every hair in my body standing up when I heard them,” said Hernandez, who previously drove a bus with more conventional schoolchildren.

Nonetheless, there are paybacks.

She smiles when one of the students composes a song with just one word: “Anita.”