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.