During her senior year of high school Grecia Ortiz spent most, if not all, of her free time in one place: the Camille Lightner Playhouse in Brownsville.
“I was just always there either for rehearsal, or helping out,” Ortiz said. “I was never home… my mom would call and ask, ‘Are you at Camille?’ and I’d say, ‘Where else would I be?’”
The small community theater became more than an escape for Ortiz, who was attending an early college high school that offered no extracurricular activities. At Camille, she began exploring acting and continued to develop her voice. She was cast in her first acting role in the musical adaptation of “Carrie.”
It is no surprise that Ortiz, 19, would jump at the chance to become part of the first class of the University of Texas at San Antonio’s Dramatic Arts Program.
She started her junior year in college by leaving nursing, all in hopes of, “majoring in something that I’m going to actually enjoy doing for the rest of my life,” she said.
UTSA launched the new four-year degree program last fall with about 22 students, said Director Paul Ardoin. This spring, the number of students majoring in theater nearly doubled to 39 and he expects enrollment to continue to increase as the word gets out.
The new program — which includes courses such as acting for stage, screen, and emerging media, playwriting, stagecraft, and more — was born out of the faculty’s desire to offer a pathway for local students who were interested in exploring dramatic arts, but had to leave San Antonio to do so, he said.
“Students who have just a thriving and amazing high school theater scene in town,” Ardoin said. “And then students who finish [high school] have the choice to go to some of the great programs at Alamo Colleges, but if they want a four-year degree at a public institution they have to make their way up to Texas State.”
Texas State University in San Marcos, which is about an hour north of the city, has one of the top 25 schools of theater, dance and film in the nation, he noted. UT Austin also has pathways through its College of Fine Arts.
“It did sort of end in a dead end for students who wanted to stay in town and pursue a four-year degree at a public institution,” Ardoin said. “So it’s been underserved for a long time.”
Beyond the stage
Conversations about creating the four-year degree program started nearly two years ago, Ardoin said. Professors from departments such as music, film and business sought to create a path that could lead students to work in every area of dramatic arts, on stage and behind the scenes.
They volunteered to teach courses and Ardoin, who had worked in the film department for at least a decade, became the program’s director.
“All students take courses in playwriting, all students take courses in performing, all of them take courses in tech, in history, and theater or theory,” he said. “And this creates a sort of general set of skills that introduces them to all aspects in the field.”
The plan is to also connect students with internships and apprenticeships to gain experience and exposure to professional routes. Some of these include companies that retrofit theaters, design and build sets and costumes, work on lighting, audio, video and more.
“We have a lot of plans for things that we’ll be doing around events and hospitality, as industries, that have so much in common with theatrical performance,” Ardoin said. “We have courses that are on the horizon for the business side of dramatic arts, like nonprofit management.”
Approval at the UT System level came only months before the start of the semester, meaning most students seeking those majors had long applied and gotten accepted to other schools. But Ardoin said his team had advertised the upcoming program among local high schools and colleges.
So far the students who have enrolled have a lot in common with Ortiz. Some had already enrolled at UTSA but changed majors once they found out about the new program. Others transferred from nearby colleges specifically looking for this route.
“It was really scary because I was going to college to be a lawyer,” said Elizabeth Cabrera, a sophomore who entered UTSA through a coordinated admissions program at UT-Austin seeking a law degree, but now is changing her major.
“I spent two weeks at Yale University studying law and advocacy. I did everything for law, but I also did theater my junior year and senior year of high school and I really loved it,” she added.
Cabrera, 18, said she naturally gravitated toward acting. Even after choosing to go to law school, she questioned if that was the right path for her. Today she wants to make dramatic arts her major and explore the arts beyond acting.
“Taking these classes really opened up my eyes,” Cabrera said. “I’m like, ‘Wow, there’s so much more in this industry that I’m actually interested in and that I can actually be good at.”
A distinctive aspect of the UTSA program is that students don’t have to audition to be accepted. Ardoin said this was done on purpose, following what they do in other programs in order to foster access.
“We sort of worked this out as a core value when we started the film program,” he said. “College is a place where you go to train in these things… We don’t need you to be a pro before you arrive.”
The art of taking risks
Before transferring to UTSA, Ortiz didn’t feel confident enough to apply to arts programs citing only her middle school glee club or community theater experience.
She had somewhat reluctantly declared nursing as her major in high school, before she even graduated with an associate degree. She had taken her family’s advice to pursue a “stable career,” something profitable that she didn’t have to worry about in the future.
Ortiz then transferred to UT Rio Grande Valley, where she unknowingly earned a lot of credits that didn’t end up transferring to UTSA. It was at UTSA where she began exploring switching her major and a curious search for “UTSA theater” led her to this new degree plan.
“My advisor was like, ‘I’m going to be honest, I would just recommend for you to switch your major,” Ortiz said. “And I was like, ‘Funny, you should say that. I actually heard that you guys are starting in your dramatic arts program.’”
Breaking the news of the drastic career changes to her family wasn’t easy. So she waited until her fall semester was about to start to break the news to her mother and sisters.
“My mom was like, ‘If you’re going to do something, you just have to be the best at it. Quiero que seas la más perron,’” Ortiz said. “And I was like ‘OK, I got you.’”
During a recent class titled Directing Actors for Stage and Screen, Ortiz was one of about 20 students holding on to every word uttered by their newly arrived professor Victor “Vic” Trevino.
The Hollywood actor was the first faculty member hired for the program last fall. He has about 30 years experience and acting credits in movies such as “American Me” and “Machete,” as well as TV shows like “Pee-Wee’s Playhouse” and “The X-Files.”
Trevino taught theater to young children and teenagers in LA, so when the opportunity arose in San Antonio, he was intrigued. Born in East Los Angeles and raised in San Antonio, he returned last December to visit the new program and attended a student-led screening, before taking the job.
“I was just blown away by what they’re doing,” Trevino said. “The dramatic arts degree at UTSA recognizes that storytelling today now lives across stage, screen, digital media, streaming, emerging platforms.”
That evening, he had the students pair up to come up with a scene about overreacting, just one scene with not much context having to be developed. The students lit up with excitement, some developed a scene around arguing, others around fear and sadness.
Once every team presented their scene to their classmates, Trevino helped them record it on their phones, teaching them how to adjust what they had just performed for a smaller screen, for different camera angles and points of views.
“Be aware that this is your shot,” he said, showing a student the space she has to move in to stay within frame for a single point of view scene.
“What really touched me was just how open they are to ideas, how open they are to direction, how open they are to taking risks, how open they are as artists, and to see that mindset come into the rehearsal hall, and they’re just trying new things,” Trevino said.
Building from passion
Since the fall, these students have been pouring a lot of energy not only into their classes, but into nightly rehearsals for their “Little Shop of Horrors” show, volunteering to promote the program and maybe even gain supporters and donors.
Trevino is also assisting in the play, which is directed by Bradley Freeman Jr., assistant professor of practice, who teaches children’s media at UTSA in the film and media studies program. Freeman brings a peculiar expertise to the program as the renown puppeteer has worked in children shows like “Sesame Street” and “The Muppets Show.”
Other contributing professors from related UTSA departments offering courses, workshops and advice include Yale University-trained stage manager Debra Justice, Buena Vista Theater manager and live production instructor Jerod Jerry, medieval drama scholar and associate professor of acting Kimberly Fonzo, and assistant professor of English and film Maia Adamina.
Joining the program this spring for a short course is Saagar Shaikh, known for his roles in the series “Deli Boys” and in the movies “Ms. Marvel” and “The Marvels.”
“[Shaikh] is another example of somebody who went to UT San Antonio as a student but didn’t have the option to major in film or dramatic arts at the time,” Ardoin said.
Ardoin said the idea is to offer courses and workshops that will appeal to students coming from a wide array of backgrounds and experiences.
“Everyone is giving all of these hours and all of this extra labor just out of passion for it,” he said. “This is not an initiative that was started by the administration. No one gave anyone the order to start a dramatic arts program. This entirely emerged from faculty input and faculty saying, ‘Hey, we’re going to do this thing. Is that okay?’ And it’s been wonderful, and incredibly difficult work.”
The San Antonio Report partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage.
