Mother, son find that arts put meaning in their lives

There’s no way Suzanne Tyler could have foreseen 14 years ago that any story of hers would end in a classy concert hall, but this one does.

Back then, she was the single parent of an infant and a 4-year-old son and coming out of an unhappy marriage. Life was tough, including a short stint on welfare. She eventually got a part-time job handling the books at the Boys & Girls Club in San Juan Capistrano before landing a full-time spot at a private company.

She then settled into a groove known all too well to single parents everywhere: raising children without a partner, working hard to pay bills and hoping your kids can make all the confusing pieces of growing up fit into a seamless design.

Instead, as the next few years went by ...

“He was a lost little boy,” she says of her son Chris. His father wasn’t around, he wasn’t athletic, he didn’t have a social network, and his mother was working a lot. He got decent grades but had to work for them. He spent a lot of time in front of a computer. He was a budding couch potato who, as far as his mother could see, didn’t have a single driving interest in his life.

That is not a good formula.

Tyler had kept her hand in Boys & Girls Club life, if only to have a safe place for Chris to go after school. One day, the club got a grant to pay for a dance class, where the kids would meet in a small portable and try to pick up the beat.

“He just came alive,” Tyler says of her son, who was then 9. “He just absolutely came alive. When I’d pick him up on the day he had dance class, he was energized.”

When the classes ended with an onstage performance at the Santa Ana Zoo, Chris knew he’d found the missing niche for his life.

You can probably fill in some blanks after that. Caught up in his new-found passion, Chris could feel his life propelled forward. Now 17 and an honor student at Dana Hills High School, he’s lined up for an arts school in New York when he graduates.

The story Tyler wants to tell, however, is only partly about her son. And I like the second half as much as the first.

Following in her son’s footsteps, in a sense, Tyler stayed in touch with the Boys & Girls Club and the South Orange County School of the Arts, which operates out of the Dana Hills campus and which Chris attends.

Lo and behold, last July she became president of the school’s board of directors. A president armed with a mission, of sorts.

“I saw what happened to my son and I know he’s not unique,” she says. “I know there are other kids out there who if we just gave them the opportunity to listen to a symphony or go see an art exhibit ... some of these kids have never even been on a bus, let alone inside a world-class venue like the Renee and Henry Segerstrom Concert Hall.”

She isn’t dropping the name by accident.

In fact, she had a plan. She needed to sell it to her board. And she did.

On June 11, a group of the school’s performers will take the stage in the glittering new 2,000-seat concert hall. Called Showcase 2007, it’s the group’s biggest fundraiser of the year and normally held in the 270-seat Porthole Theater on campus.

A modest upward move, you might say. But it’s not only the well-heeled that Tyler and the school hope to entertain. With Chris’ story as a guiding light, she has made sure that 100 seats will be available for youngsters from a few Boys & Girls Clubs in Orange County.

The thought is as pure as a first violinist’s stroke: to expose youngsters to a theater experience that they otherwise may not get.

You could call it some sort of paying it forward.

Tyler gives me a little credit because she was moved by a column some time back about a man in his 20s who said he had never seen musical theater or a symphony and wouldn’t want to. Tyler is convinced that all that man, or any youngster needs, is one shot at the majesty of a concert hall.

“My mission is to get kids, in general, excited about the arts,” she says. It’s not just about youngsters from low-income areas, she says, although some who go on June 11 would fit that description. “I want to get to all of the kids.”

I’m not lobbying here, but let me report that Tyler says South Orange County School of the Arts needs to sell about 1,000 tickets to make money and so far it’s sold 500. Tickets are available through the Orange County Performing Arts Center in Costa Mesa.

The night will feature a “Best Of” series of music and dance performances by the students. But don’t try snagging seats in the first two rows. Those will be for the Boys & Girls Club patrons.

She knows one thing for sure. Somewhere in those first two rows that night, or maybe somewhere else in the hall, some youngster who had never imagined it before will embrace the beauty of the arts and, just maybe, get a glimmer in his or her mind:

“Could that be me up on that stage someday?”

*

Dana Parsons’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. He can be reached at (714) 966-7821 or at

dana.parsons@latimes.com. An archive of his recent columns: www.latimes.com/parsons