LaGuardia Comes to ‘Fame’ Naturally

Hollywood looks on with â??Glee," but academics also make the cut By [Megan Finnegan] Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts is quite a mouthful. It"s best known simply as â??the Fame school, as it was featured in the 1980 film (later turned TV show and movie remake) about a group of students attending the High School for the Performing Arts. The characters sing their way through the tribulations of education, some succeeding, some failing, and some graduating with the promise of seeing their names in lights. The school, however, is about more than just fame's it"s about fostering talent, encouraging a lifetime appreciation for the arts and bringing out the best in its students in every subject area, from algebra to classical music. Getting into LaGuardia can be as competitive as auditioning for a Broadway play. Last year, the school accepted 664 new students's out of 9,000 applicants. Students from the five boroughs who are in 8th or 9th grades can audition for the art, dance, drama, instrumental music, technical theater or vocal music studios. Students can audition for all of the studios, but have to choose one if accepted. The auditions include practical demonstrations of talent and skill. Hopeful students might sketch a live model, set up a lighting board, jump into a ballet class, play an improvisation game, perform a monologue from an O"Neill play or sight-read a piece for the trombone. LaGuardia takes applicants" academic performance into consideration as well, ensuring that their student body is intellectually as well as artistically prepared. According to the most recent City Department of Education data, 98 percent of LaGuardia students go on to some form of higher education, including several Ivy League schools. Sandy Faison, the drama and technical coordinator, said that what is special about LaGuardia is that so many nationalities and backgrounds are represented in the student population. Students also travel from around the five boroughs to get to school each day, some coming from as far as Staten Island and commuting an hour and an half each way. â??The student body wants to be here, and that"s a gift to teachers, Faison said. â??They come in loving it already. The school was originally created to nurture special talents in students who could not attend expensive, private institutions, and it still achieves that. In 1936, Mayor Fiorello H. LaGuardia founded the High School of Music & Art to cater to gifted students in those disciplines. The separate School of Performing Arts was founded in 1948, and in 1961, the two schools merged. In 1984, the schools moved to their current Lincoln Center facility, where students have access to a professionally equipped theater and 1,150-seat concert hall, as well as rehearsal and art studio space. LaGuardia is one of only nine specialized public high schools in New York City, and it"s the only one focused solely on the performing arts. The current principal, Kim Bruno, has continued the school"s tradition of excellence, as LaGuardia has earned progress report grades of A and quality reports of â??Outstanding from the city in recent years, in addition to this year"s Blackboard Award. In addition to the standard high school curriculum, LaGuardia students take several courses each semester in their studio concentration. Dance students attend a double-period ballet session and a double-period modern dance session, daily, to model the conservatory training and environment of professional dancers. Students in the art department spend their first years learning technique, then take the studio approach with more self-guided work and criticism. The focus is on process as much as product, and the school prepares students for the various art career paths they might take. The music department has garnered recent local fame with its captivating show choir, appearing in a spot on the local news to show off their chops. Show choirs across the country have seen a boost in interest based on the popularity of the Fox television show Glee. LaGuardia"s show choir, which is only open to third- and fourth-year music students by selection, has become even more in demand, with students eager to emulate their favorite actors on the show's they even performed an arrangement of Journey"s â??Don"t Stop Believin" that marked the series premiere and season one finale of Glee. Aside from donning sparkly dresses and tuxes and grooving to a cappella versions of pop tunes, however, the music students engage in serious conservatory-style study. The program prepares the teens to go on to universities or conservatories, and even to play professionally. The drama department boasts some mega-famous alumni, including Jennifer Aniston and Entourage star Adrian Grenier. Madonna"s daughter Lourdes reportedly enrolled this year as a freshman. Behind the possibility of Hollywood stardom lies intense training in dramatic crafts. The drama track requires courses in acting, physical technique and dance, theater studies (including history and theory) and voice and diction. Students who want to work behind the scenes in design and stage management are also prepared with rigorous, hands-on experience through the technical theater department. They have opportunities to make costumes, build sets, manage crews and learn the latest computer programs that enable them to draft designs intended for theater, film and television. The drama department was recently in rehearsals for its winter musical, Hairspray, which opened Dec. 9. Budget cuts originally axed the musical, but an anonymous donor stepped in to fund the production, so the school now works from those funds and makes the money back in ticket sales each year. Faison is thrilled with the progress of the musical. â??Our show is amazing, she said. â??It was built entirely by our tech department. Freshman and sophomores and juniors and seniors all working on it to create this Broadway-caliber set. She describes the musical as the time when the entire school comes together, and it"s one of her favorite aspects of teaching at LaGuardia. But, she said, it"s not just about the arts. â??Whether they become actors or not, this place is more about developing really good people, with great empathy for other people, she said. â??This place is a little bit of joy and we try to hold on to that and try to keep this a safe haven.