Nyla Joseph has felt at ease in front of a camera ever since appearing in a public service announcement six years ago. But her dreams of becoming an actor were frustrated because her South Los Angeles middle school lacks a theater program. And her mother was leery of internet scams promising to turn her daughter into the next Disney Channel star.
Then actors Shia LeBeouf, Bobby Soto and Donte Johnson opened the Slauson Rec theater company down the street from Nyla’s house to help bring the arts to one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods. Nyla joined the program in 2019, and a year later she had a role in a socially distant production, playing the daughter of a man whose car breaks down at a drive-thru COVID-19 testing site.
Focusing on essential workers and depicting issues of race and class, “5711 Avalon” was the kind of story the 13-year-old biracial eighth grader wants to tell.
“In my community, everybody has a different struggle. And if I want to be an actor, I have to understand that,” she said. “I just want to use my art to help others.”
That dream may be coming closer to fruition. On Friday, Nyla will learn whether she’s been accepted to the Los Angeles County High School for the Arts. She’s the type of aspiring performer the top-ranked school hoped to attract this year when it revised its admission criteria to draw a more diverse pool — students who didn’t have agents when they were toddlers. Dropping Shakespearean monologues and classical music pieces from their audition requirements, administrators have worked to make the process less intimidating. The sought-after performing arts high school is addressing barriers to admissions at a time when officials in New York and elsewhere are revisiting criteria and exams for selective schools to increase diversity.
“Over the years, the demographics were getting a little skewed,” explained John Lawler, who became principal of the Los Angeles school in 2018 with the goal of making admissions more equitable. While students of color make up almost half of the school’s enrollment, less than 20 percent live in poverty and only 1 percent are English learners.
Niche, a school and neighborhood ranking site, puts the school at the top of its list of arts institutions across the country. Famous alumni include actor and comedian Taran Killam, who played King George III in “Hamilton” on Broadway, and multi-platinum artist Josh Groban
“My feeling is [we’re] the number one arts school in the country,” Lawler said. “What’s going to be even more amazing is when we’re ranked number one with an incredibly diverse population.”
The school hired an equity coordinator who focuses on getting the message about the school to underrepresented communities. When Mickiela Montoya, Nyla’s mother, saw a news clip about the changes, she was encouraged.
“Now we have some kind of hope,” Montoya said, adding that a lot of applicants “have been prepping their whole lives for this school.”
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