Performing the Broadway classic Phantom of the Opera comes with high expectations at any level of theater.
Considering the way San Clemente High School’s Drama Department showed out during this past award season, however, the group displayed that it was more than up to the task.
Leading actors Griffin Croft (Raoul) and Daisy Kopenhefer (Christine) won Best Dramatic Actor and Best Dramatic Actress, respectively, at the Spirit of the Macy Awards. The department also took home the Spirit of the Macy Award, the highest recognition a school can receive from the regional organization.
Christian McCleary, who played the villain, the Phantom, won Best Actor—sending him to New York City to soon compete among the nation’s best talents at the National High School Musical Theatre Awards, otherwise known as the Jimmy Awards.
Drama Department Director Kirsti McCleary—Christian’s mother—spoke to the San Clemente Times about all the achievements her students accomplished.
“These years don’t come along very often,” she said, adding: “I just want all the students to know how proud I am of them.”
McCleary has led the department for the past four years and has been involved for 11.
Having sustained a love for theater since a young age, including performing professionally and semi-professionally during her early years of adulthood and raising a heavily involved “theater family,” her children’s participation in performing arts as youth and high schoolers helped spark McCleary’s engagement in school theater activities.
(From left) San Clemente High School seniors Griffin Croft, Christian McCleary and Daisy Kopenhefer pose with SCHS Drama Director Kirsti McCleary after winning awards for their performance of Phantom of the Opera. Photo: Courtesy of Kirsti McCleary
She recognized that her department’s makeup at the beginning of the 2022-2023 school year contained students with the talents for dramatic acting and vocalizing necessary to pull off Phantom of the Opera.
After she applied for the rights to perform the musical, McCleary had to wait longer than she thought she needed to hear back from the company that holds the rights to Phantom of the Opera.
It wasn’t until a trip to New York City for a nephew’s wedding that she got the news of the approval, which came right as she was standing in front of a theater playing the same musical.
“I thought it was a big sign that (the production) was going to be great,” McCleary said.
The show requires a “huge undertaking,” she added, not just because of its fame, but because of the need for a large roster of talent and technical staff, to sing difficult music, to build a large set, and to pull off special effects.
During the five-month process to put it all together, McCleary recalled how families, especially fathers, pitched in to build the set, and the effort from students in her stage preparation and theater performance classes to create the costumes, do makeup, and more.
She also mentioned the help they received from a professional musical director in teaching the cast the songs.
“I would say we spent a really intensive period of two to three weeks just learning the music, because that’s sort of the foundation for this whole show,” said McCleary. “That probably was the most difficult part, because the harmonies were so hard.”
The students impressed her with their ability to learn quickly and bring their performances to life on stage, she added, with scripts that are unchanged from what the professionals use.
Once McCleary was finally able to sit back and watch her students perform, she called the experience “magical” and “wonderful,” in terms of seeing all the pieces come together, which is one of her favorite aspects of theater.
“You start from nothingness to this amazing product at the end, and it’s truly magical,” she said. “For me to sit back and watch the students just get to shine in what they love to do is really one of the most rewarding parts of my job.”
Representatives from the Spirit of the Macy and OC Cappies, groups that go to high school performances around Orange County, attended SC High’s performance of Phantom. There were also those from the JRAY Awards for Youth, which attends student-led performances in the counties of Orange, Los Angeles and Riverside.
At the Cappies, Christian McCleary won Best Actor and the department took home awards for its technical work. SCHS also won Dramatic Musical of the Year at the JRAYs, and Daisy Kopenhefer won Lead Actor in a Female Dramatic Role.
San Clemente High Senior Christian McCleary and his mother, SCHS Drama Director Kirsti McCleary, have an emotional embrace after Christian wins the Spirit of the Macy Awards’ Best Actor for his performance as the villain in the school’s production of Phantom of the Opera. Photo: Courtesy of Kirsti McCleary
Kopenhefer, who was one of the finalists who competed for Best Actress at the Macy Awards as McCleary and Griffin Croft went for Best Actor, will go to New York City in August for an intensive Broadway workshop, according to McCleary.
McCleary described Croft and Kopenhefer as hardworking actors with beautiful voices, who have worked over the years to develop, are easy to direct, and cooperate well with the surrounding casts.
That Phantom of the Opera caters to dramatic actors and trained vocalists only helped to make the two shine.
“That’s why Griffin, Christian and Daisy all went very far in this awards process,” she said. “They have developed their (voices). I’d like to mention our Carlotta, who was played by Liv Hottinger, and our Madame Giry (Raveena Khetarpal). They were amazing, too.”
All the students from the department, as well as some parents, came to the Cerritos Center for the Performing Arts to watch the Macy Awards play out on May 14, supporting fellow cast members and other peers in the theater community.
When it was announced that Christian won Best Actor, McCleary called the moment “surreal,” after so many years of attending and watching others win previously and so many years of walking alongside Christian in his theater journey.
One friend of hers even caught it all on her phone as Christian ran from his own row to give his mother a hug.
“I honestly felt like (it was) an out-of-body experience,” McCleary said of seeing her son win the award. “I sat there in shock. … It was a really awesome (time). I may have shed a few tears, I have to admit.”
Christian was then invited on stage to sing “Music of the Night,” a song from the show, completing the moment that was full of happiness and joy.
McCleary recalled that while she was pregnant with Christian, she was performing in the musical Annie.
“So, he’s literally been surrounded by music and theater since the womb,” she said with a laugh.
Following the footsteps of his two older sisters, who also were involved in performing arts at a young age, Christian participated in children’s theater, summer camps and lessons from acting and voice coaches to help him get to where he is today.
“He really has just loved it, and developed his passion for musical theater, and plans to continue with it as it goes on after high school,” said McCleary, adding: “He has such an amazing (gift for) storytelling and really a way to connect with the audience to help them feel the emotions of what the Phantom is feeling.”
McCleary will take Christian and Natalia Vassilian, winner of Best Actress from the Macy Awards, to New York next week for their participation in the Jimmy Awards, where they’ll stay in the dorms at the Juilliard School.
Then, McCleary’s family and friends will join her to watch the ceremony event.
“(Christian’s) going to have a little bit of a cheering section for him out there, which will be really fun,” she said.
As all the leading actors from the Phantom of the Opera production are graduating seniors, they plan on pursuing their passions further in life.
Christian will attend Brigham Young University to study musical theater, where Griffin Croft will also attend. Daisy Kopenhefer, McCleary said, plans to study education and theater at the University of California, Santa Cruz.