Redmond Proficiency Academy is known in the world of high school theater. Since Kate Torcom, theater director, started teaching there a decade ago and began a thespian group for competitions, Redmond students have won big.

This year, they’ve done it again at the Oregon Thespians Southern Regional Acting Competition in Eugene, held earlier in February. The thespian group, which has 30 students, won 48 medals for excellence in several acting categories, the most of any school in the region. Many students qualified for the state competition in April.

“The kids are awesome and they work really hard,” said Torcom. “Seeing their work be validated in an art form that’s so often passed by is such a gift…Here we are, year 10, of them just being absolutely ridiculous in terms of sweeping awards and what not. But what has changed is that it’s always different students.”

Students attend RPA for theater

Students specifically seek out the Redmond charter school for its theater department. Around 100 students are part of it, Torcom said, and the school culture supports the arts.

Redmond Proficiency Academy is a charter school that opened in Redmond in 2009 with 150 students. It now has close to 900 students. It is sponsored by the Redmond School District and attracts students from across Central Oregon with its focus on personalized education. The school has a campus downtown for high schoolers and a middle school campus on the west side of town. Both campuses offer enrichment programs and electives.

“As a charter school that doesn’t have sports, it puts a lot of the energy and support on the arts and the theater department, specifically,” she said. “Kids come here from all over Central Oregon to do theater. We’ve become over the years this hub for theatrical students, whether it’s kids that this is just something they love now or whether they want to pursue this at a collegiate level.”

Students collaborate with each other through the competition process. Pieces are student-produced and student-led. Students use time outside of class to prepare pieces for competition. Since the RPA schedule is college-style, students have open time slots to work on competition pieces during the day with Torcom chaperoning.

Competition categories include acting, which is split between dramatic and comedic, and musicals. Students can perform in large groups, small groups, solo or in pairs. This year, one act was 16 students working together on a group musical number.

“It becomes this legacy that they consistently pass down to one another,” she said. “They’re collaborating, they’re emphasizing, they’re putting themselves in someone else’s shoes, which we need more than ever, and they’re actively working and learning to be good humans.”

Though the regional competition went well this year, there were some challenges. A student needed batteries for a hearing aid right before a performance and another student was recovering from an illness. The students made sure everyone was okay.

“What a gift it was to watch them step up and take care of one another,” Torcom said. “That’s what I love about competition, but also makes these RPA kids so freaking special”

Students compete with their schools anonymized, to eliminate bias. Judges have score sheets for each piece, and provide feedback students can use as they prepare for the state competition. Torcom has worked in scoring before, and said that students are effectively competing against a rubric, but that judges are generous.

“Oregon Thespians is not an elitist concept. If two groups get perfect scores, then send home medals,” she said. “The medals matter, because the medals then go home, and they show people that this thing the theater department’s doing matters…It’s so easy for society to think that high school football is everything and high school theater is dumb.”

Torcom supports her students socially and emotionally as they work through preparing for competitions, ensuring they know they have the time to work on pieces. She can see they are learning from these experiences and are able to utilize those skills elsewhere in their lives.

Several productions a year

The theater department runs a fall production, a spring musical and has three additional opportunities throughout the year for anyone who wants to be on stage. In the fall, the department runs a musical theater showcase. In the winter, there are student-directed staff-written one act plays. In the spring, there is a children’s theater show. Torcom wants to make sure that young kids have the opportunity to experience theater, especially in Central Oregon, which doesn’t have a lot of access to the arts for kids.

For the spring musical “Hadestown,” which premieres in March, the department built a turntable, which Torcom is excited about.

“What a gift to be at this school that gets internationally recognized…and gets to do shows like ‘Hadestown,’ when it’s still on Broadway, nobody gets to do that,” she said. “There is no doubt in my mind that this will be one of the most largest moments of my career here at RPA. And not because of what the show will be, but because of the process of what it already has been.”