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TV’s GLEE teacher an OC boy
May 19th, 2009, 7:50 am · 9 Comments · posted by Lori Basheda
If you watch the premiere of the new musical-comedy series GLEE tonight (while texting votes to American Idol, of course) you should know that Matt Morrison, who plays a teacher who starts a glee club (”Do you want to captain the Titanic too?”), is one of OC’s own.
Morrison grew up in Cypress and graduated from Orange County HIgh School of the Arts in 1997.
The show follows an optimistic high school teacher as he tries to transform a collection of misfit glee club kids into a championship choir.
It’s a bit of art imitating life.
Turns out that Morrison’s mentor was OCHSA founder Ralph Opacic. And the story of GLEE could very well be, coincidentally, the story of Opacic. A former music teacher at Los Alamitos High, he started a glee-type program with about 30 kids and grew it to more than 300. At which point the superintendent said: Why not open a performing arts school? And OCHSA was born.
A handful of years later, Morrison was one of Opacic’s students at OCHSA. After graduating, he went on to get Broadway roles in Footloose and Hairspray.
Click here for the GLEE website.
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Use spell check when you write that story.
“Once a music teacher at Los Alamitos High, he started a glee-type prorgram with about 30 kids and grew it to more than 300. At which point the superintendant said: Why not open a performing arts school. And OCHSA was born.”
I’m sorry…the grammar, punctuation and spelling used in the composition of this story is truly embarrassing.
Nice piece, nice story flow. Re: the previous comments, there’s just one typo (-dent), and you could use a comma after the Titanic comment’s closing parenthesis. The rest is just fine, and certainly so for a blog, for which a publication’s house style usually calls for an approach that’s more casual than when one is writing for print. Looking forward to the piece on Dr. Opacic and that great school known as OCHSA!
guilty as charged! what can i say? i’m having a rough day. i’m usually not that bad. but i had no editors eyeballing things today and i have seriously been hammering things out since 7 a.m. for what it’s worth…
a small piece of the puzzle missing
David Green was also a mentor to Matt and co creator of OCHSA
plus when Matt wanted to leave theatre and pursue soccer, David was insturmental in keeping Matt focused on theatre and the rest is history!!!
It’s not art imitating life! That’s a crappy way to angle this story. I would have used the “Local Boy Does Good!” angle - it would leave you with few problematic errors. You need to fact check, and know that EVERYONE who knew and knows Matt will be writing you if you get this information wrong.
Opacic’s program was NOTHING like the mish-mash of Glee - it’s a well-oiled, performing arts machine. To equate the two is to insult OCHSA enormously.
Matt has also had an extensive broadway career that has earned him Tony nods - NEITHER of which was for Hairspray or Footloose - you should check up with him to get some CURRENT information.
Also, David Green was the reason Matt didn’t leave acting, not Ralph. Although Ralph has been a wonderful help to Matt, Green’s the one who pushed him towards NYU - where he was eventually discovered.
You eagerness to jump on the Glee bandwagon has left your story with several issues to clarify and correct. Hopefully, your follow-up piece will do so.
the art imitating life part isn’t referring to the ochsa program, but the program opacic inherited at los al and built up.
geez people - give the girl a break! it’s just a little article!
speaking of David Green. Anyone know what happened to him or where he is???