Article from Sun. Seal Beach by Ted Apodaca
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​Recent Los Alamitos High graduate, Kasey Chu, will be heading to UCLA this fall, to begin her pursuit of a degree in microbiology. But aside from her interest in science, Kasey found another passion as a theater technician. More specifically, the young student found a talent for costume design and construction.
It was a passion that recently earned her two national championship awards at the International Thespian Festival. 
She had top scores from two Los Al High productions this past school year – Costume Design for the Great Gatsby and Costume Construction for The Addams Family. 
Kasey initially found her interest in clothing design during the COVID lockdown. She discovered online videos, where people offered instruction in making their own clothes. Some of the videos showed intricate design ideas that caught her attention.
“I thought that would be a really cool thing to do,” Kasey said. 
She found a program at Los Alamitos High, that offered classes in that vein, the theater technician class that prepares students for theater work behind the scenes. Set building, lighting design and costume design, among them. 
She got involved in her freshman year and studied and worked in the program all four years. She said she enjoyed researching and designing costumes, but the construction – seeing the costumes come to fruition – was always her favorite part of the process. She also said that being part of the many teams it takes to bring a production to the stage was a bonding experience.
“I made a lot of good friends in the department … and the environment was really fun, but also educational and it helped me grow a lot as a person,” Kasey said.   
At UCLA, Kasey will be majoring in Microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics. Her eventual goal will be to work in research. Studying infectious diseases is something that peaks her interest. 
Kasey said that her decision to pursue a science degree came late in her high school career. She said the hands-on work that took place in her AP Biology class was particularly intriguing. 
“That’s when I started to think, ‘this is really neat,’ and wanted to keep doing this,” she said.
She expects her first year to be busy, and a big adjustment. But said that once she gets her footing as a college student, she might try getting involved in theater again. And why not? She’s shown a knack for it.

While we wait for directives from both the county and the school district, here are a few things that parents and students can expect from the Los Alamitos High School Drama Department:

-continuing cleaning of the Black Box and other student spaces.
-the requirement of masks to be worn at all times in the Black Box Theater.
-hand sanitizer at the entrance of the Black Box Theater.
-single class Stage Manager (elected monthly) for each class to sign students in (no more signing self in for class) to alleviate sharing of writing utensils.
-outdoor work as often as possible (weather permitting).
-all written work to be turned In digitally on Google Classroom.
-No food or drink allowed in the Black Box Theater.
​-adherence to social distancing for any/all scene/production blocking.

School continues to be closed due to COVID-19.  With that came the cancelation of the Fullerton College High School Theatre Festival and the CA State Thespian Festival.  Our program is working hard to get our students reimbursed for these events.

We will continue distance learning, and office hours are held every weekday morning from 8:30am-9:30am through the link posted on Google Classroom every morning.

Auditions for class placements for the 2020-2021 school year will be held VIRTUALLY.  Please join the Google Classroom for the information and dropbox for audition materials using the code: jkv2emu

We will be holding our banquet VIRTUALLY this year.  Stay tuned for details!

​In the meantime, stay home, stay safe, and stay healthy! <3

From March 28th-31st, 33 Los Al Drama students attended the CA State Thespian Festival at Upland High School.  Los Alamitos was honored at every turn, and represented Los Alamitos High School with dignity, professionalism, and grace.

Students competed in Individual Events (IE's), auditions, and took part in a variety of workshops.

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2018 CA STATE THESPIAN HONOR TROUPE
​After a lengthy application process outlining the work that the Los Al Drama Department, Troupe 7944 has done, which included work for "Trick or Treat so Kids Can Eat", "Houston, We Have a Solution," the growth of our program and troupe, money raised for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS, as well as letters of recommendation written by our own administration, Los Al Drama was name 2018 CA State Thespian Honor Troupe, a huge honor that is not even granted every year!

2018 SENIOR HONOR THESPIAN
After an application process and a live interview, Anna Baker was named the 2018 Senior Honor Thespian!

UNDERGRAD SCHOLARSHIPS
Louie Gallagher and Leah Schiffer (both sophomores) received Undergrad Scholarships after both an application and audition process.  These scholarships will help them pay for their trips to the International Thespian Festival this summer at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, Nebraska.

LOS AL'S VERY FIRST STO
Junior Connor Franzen was elected to the 2018-2019 State Thespian Board as an STO (State Thespian Officer), making him the very FIRST STO from Los Alamitos High School.  He will work with the other STO's to organize all of the CA State Thespian Events for the 2018-2019 school year.  This includes an officer retreat, the Southern and Northern Leadership Festivals, the CA State Junior Thespian Festival, the Southern, Central, and Northern Play Festivals, and the CA State Thespian Festival.

PLAYWORKS
Senior Anna Baker's play, Exist to Exist, was chosen out of almost 30 original plays to be produced at the CA State Thespian Festival.  Junior Melanie Tanaka was then cast in Anna's play.  This play was staged in just 24 hours and was performed in front of over 1500 people at one of the All-Festival Events.

LOS AL THEATRE TECHNICIANS
Senior Shelby Marsh and junior Karina Salas were both chosen, after personal interviews and online applications, for the Scenic Art/Paint crew for the Closing Show, a full performance presented in 48 hours.

OPENING AND CLOSING SHOWS
Seniors Trinity Lane and Chloe Lim were chosen in advance, through online audition videos to perform (including a featured duet) in the Opening Show, which included musical numbers from the musical Matilda.  They had two rehearsals before they performed in front of the 1600 people festival.  Senior Micaela Erickson was chosen in advance, through online audition video, to perform in the Closing Show, a 40 minute song cycle called "The Theory of Relativity" for the entire festival.  

SHOWCASE
Entitled Geese,  Junior Connor Franzen and sophomore Louie Gallagher placed THIRD in showcase with the piece that they originally created for their LAMDA (London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts) Exam, which also garnered them high marks.

BROADWAY CARES/EQUITY FIGHTS AIDS
Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS is one of the nation's leading industry-based HIV/AIDS fundraising and grant-making organizations. They fund the social service work of The Actors Fund and award grants to AIDS service organizations nationwide. 

After Los Al Drama's fundraising efforts (including a garage sale), Troupe 7944 placed FIRST in the amount donated to BC/EFA by school at the State Events!

I.E. EVENT FINALS
Making it to Finals with and IE placed students in the top 5% of all performers.  Out of over 2000 IE's that were performed at State, only 100 IE's are called back for Finals.

Our students who made it to finals were:
Connor Franzen/Macy Boren - Duet Musical
Louie Gallager/Micaela Erickson - Duet Acting
Melanie Takana - Monologues
Macy Boren - Monologues

IE EVENT SUPERIORS
Receiving a Superior in your IE is the highest score you can receive.  Earning a superior in your event qualifies students to take that same event to the International Thespian Festival in Lincoln, NE this summer. 

Earned superiors this year are:
Marshall Davis/Shelby Marsh - Duet Musical
Connor Franzen - Monologues
Macy Boren/Connor Franzen - Duet Musical
Macy Boren - Monologues
Louie Gallagher/Micaela Erickson - Duet Acting
Micaela Erickson - Solo Musical
Melanie Tanaka - Monologues
Karina Salas - Costume Design
Rylee Burchett - Solo Musical

LOS AL DRAMA ROCKS!

Over Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend, the cast of the fall production of Play On! attended the CETA (CA Educational Theatre Association) Festival at Los Osos High School in Rancho Cucamonga.  In addition to taking workshops, and seeing four full-length productions, the cast presented an 8-minute cutting of the show for competition in the SCENEWORKS division.

For Sceneworks, the results were:
Best Supporting Actor: Loue Gallagher
Best Supporting Actress: Leah Schiffer

For the overall productions, Los Al Drama received the following merit awards:
-Michaela Erickson
-Connor Franzen
-Faith Lee- sound
-Chloe Lim
-Shelby Marsh- scenic
-Joe Rios- lighting
-Leah Schiffer
-Melanie Tanaka

Receiving the Director's Award:
-Louie Gallagher

On Saturday, December 9th, 1/2 of Los Al Advanced Drama attended MET FEST, a one-act festival at Montclair High School.  the one act entitled AP THEATRE was performed by the following students:

Macy Boren
McKenna Brennan
Genique Clark
Christian D'Alessandro
Connor Franzen
Sofia Galicia-Canto
Trinity Lane
Faith Lee
Chloe Lim
Alexiss Lloyd
Jaq McKay
Leah Schiffer
Cole Schneider

Los Al competed against ten other schools.  At the end of the day, AP Theatre placed 1st overall, won Best Ensemble, Cole Schneider and Christian D'Alessandro received Outstanding Actor recognition, and Connor Franzen took home the award for Best Actor!

​Congratulations to Los Al Drama!