Digging his path
Lolita Harper
Remember the name: Arthur L. Ross.
Ross, a 21-year-old Costa Mesa resident, is on his way to a
professional acting career. His booming voice, radiant smile and love
of the arts creates a roadmap that leads directly to Broadway. On the
way, Ross made a pivotal pit stop at the South Coast Repertory
Professional Conservatory for eight weeks of intensive study.
The Costa Mesa High School graduate eventually wants to be a
director, but is still honing his acting, singing and choreographic
skills in preparation.
South Coast Rep’s conservatory offers eight weeks of intense
summer study, designed to ready blossoming actors for a professional
career, officials said. Not only does the course give an honest
assessment of specific strengths and weaknesses, it is held in a Tony
Award-winning location, in the middle of the county’s cultural hub.
The program ended Thursday but similar courses begin in the fall.
The summer courses cover in-depth acting, theater, film and TV
audition techniques, characterization, Shakespeare and voice.
“My love is musical theater,” he said. “I love to be on stage and
dance and sing and act. When I walk on stage, I have this immediate
surge of energy, like this is where I belong.”
Conservatory director Karen Hensel is a pivotal part of his
success, he said. Hensel, the winner of the Los Angeles Critics
Circle Award for her performance in “Top Girls,” has taught the
program since 1986. She is stringent, demanding, loving, honest and
helpful. Her job is to get Ross and his colleagues ready for the
industry.
“I can’t even think of them as teachers because they are like
mentors, like family,” he said. “Karen doesn’t sugarcoat anything.
She doesn’t try to butter you up.”
It’s a low-calorie conservatory.
“They’re not trying to scare you in or out of this; they are just
making you realize this is a big step,” Ross said.
The program measures talent, develops a career strategy,
reinforces skills and distills background and experience into a solid
career foundation, repertory spokeswoman Madeline Porter said. Ross
has such a beautiful voice, Hensel created a character for him in
“Lady House of Blues” to take the place of a sound cue, she said.
Ross is happy in whatever role, he said, he just wants to perform.
“I think of it as giving a gift to the audience,” Ross said. “If I
do my job right, they laugh, they cry and step out of a world of
chaos and they are able to just feel.”
Speaking of gifts, Ross hopes to share the theater with other up
and coming actors. It “hurts his heart” that art programs are being
cut from schools because theater can keep children engaged, active
and off the streets. During college, he worked with seventh graders
and revamped their arts program.
“It was so nice to see kids be engaged with something when they
are so busy trying to be cool,” Ross said.
He made the children promise that at least once in their adult
lives, they will go see live theater. If they took anything away from
their time with him, Ross said he wants them to remember the energy
of live performance.
Perhaps his students will see him one day.
“Ultimately I want to be on Broadway, but I’ll go wherever the
path leads me,” Ross said.
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