Stay Up To Date: The Drama Classes

Stay Up To Date: The Drama Classes

Nika Aydin, Journalist

Corona del Mar has an incredible arts program and one of the many arts offered is Drama. Ms. Ybarra, the drama teacher, explained all the different aspects of drama and what her classes are doing. Currently, drama one is dealing with the basic principles of dramatic theater. Drama two and three have just finished their monologues. A monologue is where an actor/actress presents a conversation to an audience by themselves. The classes are now working on their winter showcase, which is “bite-sized theater for busy people”. Lastly, drama four is working on a theater Competition Repertoire. They have been working on this for a little while and will continue preparing for it throughout the winter. The competition will be in Spring and all the students are working very hard and are excited for it to begin. When Ms. Ybarra was asked which class was her favorite, she chuckled and said, “No, I will not answer that, because they are all doing such different levels of drama it is too hard to decide. It is so fun to teach each class a new skill set according to their level and every class has its individuality!” Ms. Ybarra is one of the many teachers at Corona del Mar who advocate for PAMA.

PAMA is the Performing Arts and Multimedia Academy. It is a program at school for students interested in the arts to pursue their passion. When asked which one of the arts was her favorite, freshman Ava Manly had a difficult time deciding which one she liked most. She said “I love drama, dance, and choir, but I think my favorite is drama, especially musical theater. I love musical theater because you can incorporate drama, dance, and choir all in one. I also like dramatic theater because you can show your emotions whether you’re sad, angry, or happy.” There are so many fun parts of drama such as: learning all sorts of emotions, creating your own character, body movement across a stage, and analyzing scripts. When Manly was asked why she chose to do PAMA she said, “I chose to do PAMA because I see myself going to a college that has something to do with the arts. I am glad I joined PAMA because I found what I enjoy – musical theater. I want to continue doing that in the future. It has been my dream since I was in third grade to be an actress in the future.” There are only a handful of students at Corona del Mar High School who get to walk away from their high school experience saying they were in PAMA and get to cherish those memories.