NOCCA to host free open studio Oct. 5

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Got a high school student who is interested in subjects like musical theater, culinary arts or creative writing?

If so, the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts may be the school for your budding artist, and the arts conservatory will host an open studio from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Oct. 5.


“Our open studio event is free and open to the public, potential students and families,” said Brian Hammell, director of communications and campus activities at NOCCA. “It’s a very informal event to let people tour and learn more about our full-day academic and school arts program. People can walk around the building, visit the faculty and see if they are willing to make the commitment to come to school here.”

NOCCA is a regional, pre-professional arts training school for ninth through 12th grade students. In addition to musical theater, culinary arts and creative writing, the school also offers curriculum for academic studio, dance, media arts, classical music, jazz, vocal music drama, theater design and visual arts. NOCCA opened in 1973 and began accepting students on a half-day basis as well as hosting summer programs. Three years ago, NOCCA began offering classes all day. There are 650 students enrolled at NOCCA and 180 are full-day students. Tuition to the school is free and open to any student in state.

“Open studio draws about 500 people each year,” Hammell said. “We even get some middle school students. We receive about 700 to 800 applications each year, and there are lots of options if a student is not interested in the full day schedule.”


According to Hammell, the school’s musical theater, jazz and visual arts programs are the fastest-growing curriculums.

“Lots of middle school students are being introduced to visual art, and I think musical theater has grown because of the Glee television show,” Hammell said. “Theater design – light, sound and costumes – is small, but growing. We also get lots of students from rural parishes who are interested in creative writing.

“All of our students are kids that take art very seriously.”


While learning at NOCCA, students are taught both academic and art curriculum. Math and science teachers will even sometimes work together to instruct students.

“Academic courses are very project-based,” Hammell said. “Students are very tied to learning in the arts and the way they understand things as an artist.”

Each year 95 to 98 percent of NOCCA graduates continue on to college and conservatory programs, and next year, the school will graduate its first true class of students, students who have been there full time from freshman through senior year.


“Each year we ‘celebrate’ around 125 seniors in our half day program who are graduating from their other school,” Hammell said. “We have around 150 seniors, 175 juniors, 200 sophomores and 200 freshmen.”

Many of the school’s current students commute in from out of the parish to attend NOCCA, including students from Baton Rouge, greater New Orleans and Jefferson and St. Tammany parishes. Each year, the school also gets a handful of students from the Tri-parish area, and Jenna Guidry of Houma is currently in her sophomore year at NOCCA.

Guidry first found out about NOCCA through the South Louisiana Center for the Arts when she was in the sixth grade. The young girl was being homeschooled at the time due traveling back and forth to Nashville to sing, write and perform.


“I found out they (NOCCA) had an audition the day before the actual audition,” Guidry said. “Having been involved in community theatre prepared me for my audition. I was Dorothy in P.S. Productions Wizard of Oz here in Houma a year or two before the audition so I did a monologue from that and sang ‘Over the Rainbow.’”

Once she was accepted into NOCCA’s musical theatre prep program, Guidry became interested in the jazz program. At the time, Guidry was playing traditional piano, not jazz, but she soon started taking jazz piano lessons and studying the necessary scales.

“I chose the jazz curriculum because I was singing and writing country music, but (I’ve) always loved jazz music and wanted so desperately to learn as much as I could about jazz so I could incorporate some of the jazz techniques into my songwriting,” she said. “If you are from this area and have a talent in one of the arts, I strongly recommend you look into NOCCA. Go to the website and browse through the different arts offered. Read through the audition requirements and please ask questions.”


In addition to enjoying her courses, Guidry also likes attending school surrounded by like-minded people.

“I thought my social life would suffer but it didn’t – it was the opposite,” she said. “At NOCCA everyone is talented and focused on their art which makes it so easy to connect with others. I’m convinced that artistic people think differently and see things differently. Our academic instructors incorporate that mindset into their presentation of material.”

Guidry’s love of music and the arts are what keep the young woman going each day, and the Monday through Friday daily commutes to and from New Orleans and longer-than-normal schools days are of little concern to an artist who is doing what she truly loves.


“My freshmen year, I had 10-hour school days which included academics and my art,” she said. “I would wake up at 5:15 a.m., leave Houma at 6:15 a.m., get out of school at 6:30 pm and be back home at 8 p.m.

“Yet I discovered that the old saying ‘If you truly love what you do you will never work a day in your life,’ had merit. Even though my days were long and very tiring, I couldn’t wait to wake up and do it all over again.”

Guidry’s parents, Becky and Scott Guidry, both drive their daughter to and from New Orleans as well as carpool with parents of other area students.


“Sometimes we are on the road three to six hours a day,” Becky said. “Jenna sometimes sleeps on the way to school and does homework on the way back. She makes it work because she wants it to work.

“It’s a wonderful school and students get a top notch education in academics and art without having to leave the school. We asked Jenna how she liked it after her first week and she said it felt like home. When your kid tells you something like that, you have a tendency to make things work.”