San Diego School of Creative and Performing Arts

San Diego School of Creative and Performing Arts
Address
2425 Dusk Drive
San Diego, California
United States
Information
Type Public
Established

1978 Mascot = Lions

Head = Mitzi Yates Lizárraga
School district San Diego Unified School District
Publication The Production, The K-Arts Connection
Website http://www.sandi.net/scpa

The San Diego School of Creative and Performing Arts, known as SCPA, is a public arts magnet school in southeastern San Diego, California, USA. Most of the students in grades 6-12 are bussed to the school from throughout the San Diego Unified School District. They take specialized classes in theater, music, dance, visual arts, video production, and stagecraft along with regular academic subjects.

Admission

Students have to apply to the school in the front office, in the middle of the year. Auditions take place from February to March of the school year. Students not only have to excel in their art, but their academics and are allowed to audition for more than one major. If the student is accepted into more than one major, they will have the opportunity to choose only one major they wish to go in for. The auditions are competitive and students from all around the San Diego county come out and audition for SCPA.

Middle school

Students entering grades 6-8 are admitted through an application process. Usually, students with siblings already attending SCPA or students with seminar certification are more likely to be admitted.

High school

Students entering high school either as freshmen or as transfers must audition in order to be admitted. Their audition must be in an artistic area of their interest, such as dance, singing, visual art, drama, instrumental music, creative writing, or musical theatre

Productions

Mainstages

SCPA puts on two large musicals ("mainstages") each year in the Florence Johnson Grand Theatre. In the year 2005-2006, these shows were Les Miserables and A Chorus Line. Other mainstages have been Grease, West Side Story, Footloose, Gypsy, Bye Bye Birdie, and Into the Woods. For the 2006-2007 school year, the mainstages are South Pacific and Purlie. Many smaller productions take place in the Little Theatre, including performances by the advanced acting and musical theatre classes. 2006-2007 shows in the Little Theatre include "The Odd Couple", "Smokey Joe's Cafe: Songs of Leiber and Stoller", and "The Crucible". And for the 2007-2008 school year, for the two main stages are the musicals Urinetown and Thoroughly Modern Millie. In 2007-2008, the P&P play was To Kill A Mocking Bird and for Advance Musical Theatre, Honk!. Along with these performances, there was also going to be a theatre showcase. The 2008-2009 performances included A Piece of My Heart and Ain't Misbehavin, in the Ole Kittleson Little Theatre, The King and I, in the Florence Johnson Grand Theatre, and two straight plays: Play On! and The Musical Comedy Murders of 1940, also in the Grand Theatre. The 2009-2010 season consisted of The Yellow Boat, the Advanced Musical Theatre's production of Working, and A Midsummer Night's Dream in the Grand Theatre. The '09-'10 season also consisted of P&P's production of Metamorphoses performed in the Little Theatre.

Dance Productions

In addition to the mainstages, SCPA's dance classes perform in dance concerts that also take place in the Florence Johnson Grand Theatre. Notable dance productions include the senior dance production, the winter and spring dance productions, and the SCPA Choreotech Show.

Winter and Spring Dance Concerts consists of choreographies done by dance teachers that include beginning to ensemble level dancing.

Senior Dance Production is when seniors in the highest level of dance, or ensemble, work together to put on a production. These selective group of seniors each choreograph a dance with the style of their choice. The production is usually held in early February.

Music Productions

Musically, the intermediate and advanced music classes (including choir and instrumental) put on concerts in both the winter and spring, aptly named the Winter Music Concert and the Spring Music Concert.

Arts

Music

Musically, students can choose from two main forms of music: Choir and Band/Orchestra. The advanced musical groups go on annual tours to compete against other schools from around the nation. These tours can be to places as close as Anaheim and Las Vegas, and can be as far as Boston and Hawaii. The most notable tour was in 2008 to San Francisco—featuring the schools' Chamber Orchestra, Wind Ensemble, and Jazz Band.

Dance

Several dance classes are available for students. These classes, ranging from beginning to advanced levels, aren't limited to only one or two types of dance. Some of the dance classes offered are Theater Dance, Ballet, Irish Dance, Modern Dance, and Dances of Mexico and Spain.

A professional strand dance class is two-periods long and are for more serious dancers who want to get the best of their training.

Mixed Media Arts

For students who flourish in visual arts, other options are available. Students can choose to delve into photography, drawing and painting, video production, Martial Arts and yearbook.

From 2008-2011 the video production class put together a K-Arts broadcast that was essentially a News Broadcast for the school however it was cut in 2011 due to financial reasons

Incidents

Shooting Threat

On May 3, 2007, a shooting threat against the school was discovered. The message, written on the walls of a restroom, read "School shooting tomorrow 5/4 at 6:45". The same week, similar threats were found at Poway High School, Otay Ranch High School, and Correia Middle School, in which a female 8th grader from Correia Middle School was detained. [1] [2] [3]

The school day on May 4 continued without incident at SCPA, despite considerably lowered attendance from students. Gunshots were fired, however, at an elementary school on May 4. Shots were fired at Olive Elementary School in Vista, prompting the lockdown of several schools in San Diego. No students were injured, and all were accounted for. The suspect is said to have been a caucasian male with long hair. [4] [5]

Notable Students

Notable faculty

Director Mitzi Yates Lizárraga was the principal and CEO of the Duke Ellington School of the Arts, an arts-focused school operated in partnership with The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, The George Washington University, and the District of Columbia Public Schools in Washington D.C. In 2003, Mrs. Lizárraga was a Fulbright Memorial Fund Scholar to Japan, and from 1991 through 2000, she served on the Board of Directors of the Connecticut Commission on the Arts. Mrs. Lizárraga holds on M.A. in Liberal Studies from Wesleyan University and a B.F.A. in dance from the New York University Tisch School of the Arts. Mrs. Lizárraga is also a former dancer of Bertram Ross Dance Company.

Faculty Cynthia Diana Morales holds a B.F.A. in dance from The Juilliard School and an M.A. in dance education from the University of California Los Angeles. While at The Juilliard School she performed in works by dance masters José Limón, "There is a Time", "The Winged" and Anna Sokolow "The Lovers". Mrs. Morales has had an extensive career as a performer dancing for Ballet Hispanico, working with such notables as Talley Beatty and Ballet Metropolitano de Caracas, Venezuela as a principal dancer.

See also

References

  1. ↑ " Shooting Threats Discovered At Local Schools"
  2. ↑ " Graffiti Threats Found At 2 More Schools"
  3. ↑ " More threatening graffiti, this time at Otay Ranch school "
  4. ↑ " Breaking News: Report Of Shots Fired At Elementary School "
  5. ↑ " http://www.nbcsandiego.com/news/13259989/detail.html?dl=mainclick "

External links

Coordinates: 32°40′49″N 117°2′54″W / 32.68028°N 117.04833°W