Cape News

Rivadeneira NFMAA’s guiding star

Theater arts educator teaches the fine art of stagecraft to young thespians

If there is a big show happening at the North Fort Myers Academy for the Arts, you can bet Kathy Rivadeneira is involved, likely in many different areas.

Rivadeneira is the middle school theater educator and director at the school, which entails teaching not only the middle schoolers but also second and third grade.

She also teaches beginning and advanced costume design and is the director of all the middle school shows, as well as director of the school's advanced theater group, which competes locally and statewide.

The school always holds a spring musical, the annual Nutcracker ballet in December, and a one-act play, to go along with a talent show, test showings of Disney favorites all of which Rivadeneira is involved with.

"It's really complicated, but fun," Rivadeneira said with a laugh.

Rivadeneira was born in New York, but lived in Windsor, Ontario, Canada for much of her life, graduating from the University of Windsor with a degree in drama in education, which integrates the arts in teaching other subjects, and from St. Katherine's Teachers College.

"We vacationed here in Florida before my parents transferred their business down here when I was becoming a teacher," Rivadeneira said. "There were no teaching jobs in Ontario, so I ended up teaching at Dunbar Middle School in 1995 (which had no drama program at the time)."

She started teaching drama after school, and was so good at it she was asked to teach it during school, which she did for several years before moving to California, where she did some work as an extra in movies.

Rivadeneira spent some time in Wichita, Kansas, where she taught theater before moving back to Southwest Florida in 2005. After moving around, she taught music and theater at Christa McAuliffe Elementary School in Cape Coral for five years, where she won a Lighthouse Award.

"We rented the theater at the North Fort Myers Academy for the Arts because our school didn't have an auditorium. We did that for two years before Dr. Douglas Santini called me, wanting a new drama teacher," Rivadeneira said. She has taught at NFMAA since 2015.

Rivadeneira said she is able to excel at NFMAA because of the team of artists and teachers she has working beside her.

"We collaborate really well on things. I direct a lot of the theater shows, but we have some great visual artists, choir director, the dance teachers during the Nutcracker," Rivadeneira said. "I'm in the show as one of the adults so we're always helping each other out."

While most people believe that last year was something of a lost year for many, Rivadeneira said she learned so much about new ways to do things, adding another layer to the educational process.

"Because of the pandemic, I had to learn how to do things virtually. There are so many things now that I'm going to continue doing in a virtual sense," Rivadeneira said. "I can teach kids now about film acting as opposed to just stage acting. They know how to stay in the frame and express yourself through the camera."

The pandemic also allowed her to reach out to Broadway artists and hold Zoom classes with them about choreography which they turned into a showcase at the end of the year.

"Without the pandemic, we would have done a spring musical, which would have been a great experience, but we never would have had the experience of working with artists in the field," Rivadeneira said.

NFMAA has been a pilot school for several Disney Junior productions that were tried there, but not yet released. The school did "Moana" and "Newsies" before any other school.

Before the pandemic, they had started work on "Frozen" before it had to be shut down. Rivadeneira said they plan to do that show this spring and invite the original cast from two years ago, many of whom have moved on to high school.

They also plan to do a live "Nutcracker" this year after having to do it virtually last year, and the one-act play is called "Box." Rivadeneira said things can change and doesn't know what the guidelines are going to be regarding seating.

"We have a new black-box theater here that we haven't been able to utilize. Last year it was a dance room," Rivadeneira said. "My Theater 3 kids will put on the play."

Rivadeneira has also done work on her own, opening up her own theater company and doing summer shows for four or five years with the Cape Coral Playhouse, including "The Little Mermaid" at the Shell Factory a few years ago.

Rivadeneira recently did another "Little Mermaid" show as an associate director at the Ogunquit Playhouse in Maine, a prestigious theater that does a summer drama program for youth.

Rivadeneira said she had planned to be part of the school's annual arts camp (which includes a three-week crash production) before the pandemic hit, shutting that down for the last two summers. She said she will likely return to Maine and do their summer program.

But it's the kids who take the stage and that's the part Rivadeneira loves the most; watching them perform and improve and see them reach and go beyond their potential is what she really enjoys.

"I love when kids can see they accomplished something and can be proud of themselves, whether it's a kid who loves to be onstage and can hit that high note, or the one who doesn't want to say their name in class and I got them to come out of their shell," Rivadeneira said. "They don't have to be onstage, they can work backstage or with costumes."