“Chicago PD” actress Melissa Carlson credits her high school alma mater with giving her inspiration and encouragement to forge a life for herself as an actress.
She recalls feeling a sense of rare good fortune when the school’s Focus on the Arts festival exposed students to a rich array of art forms they’d never experienced.
“I am amazed and heartened by the fact that Focus is still around,” said Carlson, who will be returning to HPHS as a presenter this year.
The festival has taken place every other year since 1964.
“As a vehicle for expanding our world view, our tolerance and acceptance, the arts have never been more crucial for our society, yet funding and appreciation for them have waned,” Carlson observed.
Carlson will be sharing behind-the-scenes stories, conducting acting exercises and providing insights into the business of acting and how she navigates the worlds of stage and film.
What advice might she have for aspiring actors?
“Don’t do it for the money, because there is a very small percentage of actors who make a decent living at it,” Carlson said. “Do it because you have to do it with 100 percent of your body and soul.”
About 60 alumni will be among the 250 artists, writers, musicians, architects, designers and media personalities participating in the three-day event attended by all 2,100 students.
Dancer Jesse Kovarsky, a 2006 graduate, is making his first Focus appearance this year fresh off a run in the Broadway revival of “Fiddler on the Roof,” where he played the role of the rooftop fiddler. He’d performed in Highland Park High School’s production of the musical his sophomore year.
Other returning alumni include fashion designer and Vera Wang executive Keith Lissner; film screenwriter Allan Loeb; Fox 32 Chicago executive Matt Piacente; video game designer Ashley Ruhl and Emmy Award-winning casting director Rachel Tenner, whose projects have included the television series “Fargo.”
Alumni Adam and David Rudman, who regularly appear at Focus, have recently seen their PBS Kids cartoon “Nature Cat” become a breakthrough hit. Adam will speak about animation while David, who plays Cookie Monster on “Sesame Street”, will speak about life as a Muppeteer.
“There is something for everyone to enjoy at Focus, whether it be music, dance, art, film, media, theater or writing,” said HPHS senior Lindsey Byster, a member of the student leadership board. “Even people who aren’t interested in the arts have an opportunity to open themselves up to new activities, or at least be entertained.”
Byster said it’s also inspiring to hear how the artists have managed to succeed in difficult fields. “They hold a lot of advice for achieving and succeeding in a career that may not be as stable and secure as other careers out there,” Byster said.
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Over the three days of Focus, students attend their usual classes for three periods of the school day and pack the remaining five or six periods with workshops, performances and events.
On assigned registration days, some students start lining up outside the school cafeteria at 4:30 a.m. in hopes of getting into a workshop or venue high on their priority list when the doors open at 7 a.m.
“I think that really speaks to the enormity of Focus and what it means for these students,” said Susan Humerick, one of four parent coordinators who work with Focus coordinator Jody Weinberg and more than 400 parent, faculty and student volunteers.
Humerick said students with a career interest in a field like broadcasting or sports journalism want to hear from working professionals.
“Students want to hear how they got where they are and kind of use that as a jumping off path for ideas they may want to pursue,” Humerick said.
Still, some students find the most gratifying experiences of Focus are those that take them into unfamiliar territory and outside their comfort zones. She recalled that one female student deeply involved in drama had signed up to hear actors and script writers her sophomore year. When it came time to register her senior year, she decided to make room in her schedule for things she knew nothing about.
“She found she loved things she didn’t know she would love, or didn’t even know what they were about,” Humerick said. “That is sort of the point of Focus.”
Some lesser-known offerings this year will include food art, bonsai tree designing, apocalypse writing, Afro-Puerto Rican drumming, encaustic painting, wood-turning art, urban macrame, old-time radio theater and sculpting with masking tape.
A number of workshops and performances center on themes of social justice.
The Storycatchers Theatre: Changing Voices Ensemble writes, produces and performs music based on the life stories of young adults who have been arrested or incarcerated.
The Chalk Lines Project, developed by dance faculty members at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, uses dance to spark dialogue about the daily violence toward black people and African-American men.
Erasing the Distance, a theater company that sheds light on mental health issues through the stories and word-for-word dialogue of those with mental illness, will perform and discuss their artistic process with students.
During two opening assemblies April 26, the game-based improv troupe ComedySportz will perform skits and songs created on the fly from audience suggestions with willing student volunteers joining the improv cast.
The festival will close the afternoon of April 28 with musical performances by Dance Crash Chicago and Musicality, a vocal ensemble based out of Curie High School in Chicago that recently became semi-finalists on NBC’s “America’s Got Talent.”
Twitter @KarenABerkowitz