NORM TESTA

Teacher impacts students and audience

Norm Testa powers through 12-hour workdays advancing stagecraft with an intense dedication to create unique experiences during theater performances and classes at Catalina Foothills High School.

“To me, theater affects audiences,” Testa says. “It is supposed to be an emotional story-telling kind of thing. It takes all of the elements to really change people. I have this crazed, manic passion for it.”

TEACHER WITH A LEGACY As a technical theater teacher for 22 years, Testa says he has taught more than 5,000 students to do the things necessary for successful performances, including lighting, sound and imagery. He estimates a quarter of his former students currently are using technical theater skills in their careers.

For Testa, good theater leaves audience members feeling that the performance has lasted only 25 minutes when the experience was really a rewarding two hours long.

“That’s why I do theater,” Testa says.

DOING AND TEACHING To do theater while teaching technical theater typically means workdays that start at 7:30 a.m. before school begins and end at 7:30 p.m. after stage production and rehearsals. He also manages the busy rental schedule of the CFHS performance facilities and directs the annual Arizona Thespians Tech Challenge, where 50 four-member high school teams compete in timed events in skills such as hanging lights, cable rolling, costume quick change, and props change over.

Teaching is a form of performance, another opportunity to affect an audience, Testa says. He believes his career and technical education program teaches students important life skills, such as learning to solve problems on the fly, to improvise.

In January, Testa received the Legendary Teacher Award from Pima County JTED. During the surprise presentation in one of his classes, students spoke of rewarding experiences in his technical theater program. One said Testa’s classes motivate her to go to school.

“That’s why I teach,” Testa says.

Do you know an Arts Hero? Someone who works tirelessly to strengthen, improve and enhance the arts in our community?

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