{"id":273163,"date":"2019-07-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-07-01T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/point-loma-high-school-theater-program-takes-home-national-youth-arts-award\/"},"modified":"2019-07-01T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-07-01T07:00:00","slug":"point-loma-high-school-theater-program-takes-home-national-youth-arts-award","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/point-loma-high-school-theater-program-takes-home-national-youth-arts-award\/","title":{"rendered":"Point Loma High School theater program takes home National Youth Arts award"},"content":{"rendered":"

Point Loma High School\u2019s recent production of\u00a0“Heathers: The Musical”\u00a0received a\u00a0National Youth\u00a0Arts\u00a0award for Outstanding Supporting Performance in a\u00a0Musical and\u00a0a nomination for Outstanding Direction.\u00a0<\/span>
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The NYAA are held at the end of each academic year to recognize outstanding\u00a0theatrical and technical\u00a0theater\u00a0student performances throughout San Diego. This\u00a0year marks the 14th annual awards ceremony.\u00a0<\/span>
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This past spring, Point Loma High School\u2019s\u00a0theater\u00a0program performed the rock\u00a0musical\u00a0“Heathers: The Musical.”\u00a0Based off of the 1988 black comedy\u00a0“Heathers,”\u00a0this musical parodies John Hughes\u2019 high school movies and comments on high\u00a0school romances, queen bee cliques, and teen violence.\u00a0<\/span>
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Amy Chagnon, director of the production, said that\u00a0the\u00a02018\u00a0Stoneman Douglas High\u00a0School shooting, or Parkland shooting, inspired her to put on this production.\u00a0“Because \u2018Heathers\u2019 deals with suicide, teen violence, gun violence,\u00a0I find it very\u00a0important to tackle those issues\u00a0face-forward. We are lucky to have an administration\u00a0that is willing for us to put on edgier productions if we will learn something from that\u00a0experience.”\u00a0<\/span>
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Chagnon, who is also a drama teacher at Point Loma High, was nominated for her\u00a0direction of this production. She has been the drama teacher and director as well as\u00a0an English teacher at Point Loma for the past two years.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>
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In a conversation with Chagnon, she said that the enthusiastic students contributed\u00a0to the success of the show. “A major part of the success of any high school\u00a0theater\u00a0production is when the students commit to the production. They really stepped up to\u00a0the plate, showed up, and made the show a priority.”\u00a0<\/span>
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And the students did step up to the\u00a0plate. Fiona Byrne (Class of\u00a02020) won\u00a0Outstanding Supporting Performance in a Musical for her portrayal of teen alpha\u00a0Heather Chandler. Byrne attributes her win to the strength of the cast. “I was\u00a0fortunate to have a super supportive cast around me who made every\u00a0moment\u00a0better. They were great scene partners as well as great friends.”\u00a0<\/span>
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Bethany Baker\u00a0(Class of 2021), who was nominated in the same category for her\u00a0performance as one of Heather Chandler\u2019s sidekicks, Heather Duke, agrees with\u00a0Byrne. “The thing that most contributed to my success in this production was my cast\u00a0and the energy we all had with each other.”\u00a0<\/span>
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Ironically, Point Loma High School set out to interpret a musical that focuses on high\u00a0school\u00a0drama and cliques; yet in the process, the students created lasting\u00a0memories\u00a0and friendships. Chagnon muses that the growth of the tight-knit cast was the most\u00a0rewarding out of the whole process. “Some of these students had never been in a\u00a0production in their life and had stage fright. I see that progress in their faces from the\u00a0first day of rehearsal to closing night. I\u2019ve seen how much confidence they\u2019ve gained\u00a0and friendships they\u2019ve made in those two to three months. I am proud to have\u00a0impacted them in that way.”\u00a0<\/span><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Point Loma High School\u2019s recent production of\u00a0“Heathers: The Musical”\u00a0received a\u00a0National Youth\u00a0Arts\u00a0award for Outstanding Supporting Performance in a\u00a0Musical and\u00a0a nomination for Outstanding Direction.\u00a0\u00a0The NYAA are held at the end of each academic year to recognize outstanding\u00a0theatrical and technical\u00a0theater\u00a0student performances throughout San Diego. This\u00a0year marks the 14th annual awards ceremony.\u00a0\u00a0This past spring, Point Loma High School\u2019s\u00a0theater\u00a0program performed […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":273164,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11561","_seopress_titles_title":"Point Loma High School theater program takes home National Youth Arts award","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11549,11551,11561],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-273163","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-entertainment","category-news","category-peninsula-beacon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273163","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=273163"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/273163\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/273164"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=273163"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=273163"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=273163"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}