{"id":39418,"date":"2022-07-11T17:21:04","date_gmt":"2022-07-11T23:21:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/montezuma-cortez-thespian-heads-to-cu-boulder\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T08:49:44","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:49:44","slug":"montezuma-cortez-thespian-heads-to-cu-boulder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/montezuma-cortez-thespian-heads-to-cu-boulder\/","title":{"rendered":"Montezuma-Cortez thespian heads to CU Boulder"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Koral
Koral Jackson during the Montezuma-Cortez High School production of \u201cMary Poppins\u201d in 2022. (Courtesy photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Koral Jackson is taking her talents up north.<\/p>\n

The recent Montezuma-Cortez High School graduate and theater star is headed to University of Colorado Boulder, where she will continue to study acting. She made her mark on the M-CHS department as a versatile actress who delved fully into embodying every character she portrayed.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing able to dress up in a costume and play pretend is just awesome,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd to become a different character and try to get into the mind of that person, while bringing joy to other people is just so great to me, and I\u2019m just so drawn to that idea.\u201d<\/p>\n

She was one of three seniors to receive the \u201cBest Thespies\u201d award at M-CHS, which honors seniors for exceptional contributions to the theater department.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think she\u2019ll be a really good fit there, and I think she\u2019ll definitely be successful in whatever she chooses to do,\u201d said M-CHS theater director Nicholaus Sandner.<\/p>\n

\"Koral
Koral Jackson during a scene from the Montezuma-Cortez High School production of \u201cFiddler on the Roof\u201d in 2020. (Courtesy photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Koral
Koral Jackson, center, during rehearsal for Montezuma-Cortez High School's production of \u201cFiddler on the Roof.\u201d For the 2020 production, Jackson learned about dialect and Yiddish culture. (Erika Alvero\/Journal file photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Koral
Koral Jackson, left, in the Montezuma-Cortez High School production of \u201cThe Isle of Skye\u201d in 2021. (Anthony Nicotera\/Journal file photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Koral
Koral Jackson on the set of Montezuma-Cortez High School\u2019s \u201cThe Play That Goes Wrong\u201d in 2022.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Koral
Koral Jackson on the set of \u201cThe Play That Goes Wrong\u201d in 2022.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Koral
Koral Jackson, then 10 years old, belts out \u201cBlack Hole Sun\u201d by Soundgarden during a contest at Blondie\u2019s Trophy Room in 2015.<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Koral
Koral Jackson with her Montezuma-Cortez High School diploma in 2022. (Courtesy photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Koral
Koral Jackson auditions for the Voice-Sing Out for Families in 2013. (Journal file photo)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Savannah Story and Brooklyn Harper were the other two \u201cBest Thespies\u201d of the year.<\/p>\n

Singing initially drew Jackson to theater.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been singing karaoke at Blondie\u2019s forever, singing competitions, and eventually when I got to middle school I really got into the drama program,\u201d Jackson said.<\/p>\n

Her first role in a play was as an elf \u2013 and Mrs. Claus\u2019 understudy \u2013\u00a0in a Christmas pageant in fourth grade. She was hooked and continued bringing her charismatic personality to the stage throughout middle school.<\/p>\n

Once she arrived in high school, she further developed her craft through a range of different roles and theater-related opportunities.<\/p>\n

\u201cSkill-wise, she\u2019s definitely grown in terms of her ability to be subtle,\u201d Sandner said.<\/p>\n

Part of this subtlety also involved fully understanding her characters\u2019 backgrounds and the play\u2019s setting, a task she took very seriously.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you don\u2019t understand the reasonings why this person does this, or this person is playing this role, then it\u2019s not going to come off right,\u201d Jackson said. \u201cYou definitely have to dig a little deeper than what is seen on stage.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the 2020 production of Fiddler on the Roof,<\/em> Sandner brought in a dialect coach, and a parent spent a lot of time speaking to the students about Jewish culture and the Yiddish language.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s amazing how something as simple as having to speak a different way can really pull you out of who you are and allow you to create somebody different,\u201d Sandner said.<\/p>\n

During her junior year, Jackson played the part of Elizabeth Proctor in The Crucible,<\/em> a play set during the Salem witch trials of the late 1600s. For this production, Jackson was really forced to think about the underlying emotions and motivations of her character, in addition to embracing the sensibilities of 17th century Puritan life and learning to play a reserved, married woman.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause she hid so many of her feelings, you really had to dig deep into her motivations and why she did the things she did, why she acted toward certain people the way that she did,\u201d Jackson said.<\/p>\n

Her recent role playing the mother Winifred Banks in Mary Poppins<\/em> was perhaps the perfect exhibition of the subtlety she developed as an actress throughout high school: someone who interacted with silly characters while remaining serious herself.<\/p>\n

As with everything else, the COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc on the M-CHS theater department\u2019s plans in the past two years.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just had to have a flexible mindset, knowing that at any moment we could have to postpone or shut it down,\u201d Sandner said.<\/p>\n

In one such instance, after months of preparation, all schools and activities shut down the night before Fiddler on the Roof<\/em> was set to open in March 2020. In anticipation of the closure, families and community members were invited to the musical\u2019s dress rehearsal, but Jackson said she never \u201cgot to close that show,\u201d and because of that, she feels \u201ca strong emotional attachment to Tzeitel,\u201d the eldest daughter whom she played in that production. Similarly, postponing the performance of The Crucible<\/em> from winter to spring during the 2020-21 school year meant a prolonged emotional connection to her character in that play.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had to hold on to that show, that emotionally heavy show, for months,\u201d Jackson said.<\/p>\n

In addition to acting, Jackson was heavily involved in other aspects of the theatrical department, including costume crew, the school\u2019s improvisational troupe and scriptwriting for The Isle of Skye, <\/em>a sea shanty-based production, which the students and Sandner wrote and performed in March 2021. Jackson was \u201cvery instrumental in that process,\u201d Sandner said of her screenwriting. Throughout high school, too, she was always happy to help others, he added.<\/p>\n

All this involvement earned her over 200 points through the International Thespian Society, the honor society for theater students. To qualify for the highest ranking, students need to earn 180 thespian points, Sandner said.<\/p>\n

In the fall, Jackson, the daughter of Patrick (P.A.) Jackson and Jeannie Gleason, is headed to CU Boulder, where she will continue to pursue acting and theater. She\u2019s excited to experience a new environment and get involved in the new program.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m pursuing acting, I definitely want to end up doing stage theater professionally,\u201d Jackson said. \u201cStage theater is really, really authentic to me; you have to come up with practical ways to create certain parts, and you don\u2019t have cue cards, and there\u2019s no cut and action in stage theater. And I think that is what makes it as big of a deal as it is and as it should be.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jackson plans to continue acting, stage work<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39419,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,28,36,445],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-39418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-headlines","tag-montezuma-cortez-high-school","tag-newsletter-lead"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39418"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39418\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84327,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39418\/revisions\/84327"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39418"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=39418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}