Katrina Negrete is a very practical young woman. She’s always been practical. So, while she’s had a lifelong love for music and performance, she was never going to pursue the arts as a career.
At age 25, the Valencia resident is still involved in the theater, though now she’s doing it for a living. She’s the vocal director of the upcoming stage show “The Rat Pack Lounge,” which is playing July 27 to Aug. 31 at the Canyon Theatre Guild on Main Street in Newhall.
“I wanted to be a physical therapist,” Negrete told The Signal during a phone interview earlier this week. “It’s always scary to think of going into the arts because they’re not necessarily always as stable as we’d like. It genuinely scared me and didn’t feel like an option. I love doing it, and I know that my parents would’ve supported me to do that, but I’ve always been a nervous Nelly. So, I went with my other passion, which was science.”
Negrete, whose roots, her dad said, go back to Mexican singer-actor Jorge Negrete from the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s, was born into music. Negrete’s dad, Tony Negrete, played guitar in a California band called The Clams in the 1970s and ’80s, and he acted in commercials and film, and Negrete’s mom, Bonnie Negrete, acted on the stage and directed plays early in life. Negrete’s parents met in the theater program at Los Angeles Valley College in Van Nuys, and the two of them transferred to UCLA’s theater program together.
But her dad would get into sound editing on movies and her mom in business and legal affairs in animation. It’s perhaps the practical career outcomes Negrete’s parents settled into that put that kind of pragmatism in their daughter’s head. According to Negrete’s dad, he’s fairly certain about that.
“I think it was us a lot of time saying, ‘You know, you can do that — follow your dream — but you should always have a backup,’” he said. “She was always really good in the STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) subjects.”
Negrete’s mom added that her daughter actually flourishes in math and science.
“It’s not just a matter of Katrina being practical,” she said. “She’s really good at those things. She has other skills that people in the arts don’t generally have.”
Still, Negrete and her younger brother, Joey, grew up heavily focused on playing and singing music. It was part of their everyday life growing up. Even the simple “happy birthday” song for friends and family members would more closely resemble a serious performance with piano accompaniment than the typical obligatory birthday convention.
When she was 9 years old, Negrete said her parents put her in piano lessons. She recalled being excited about it at first, but added that she quickly got over it. The idea of getting up early every Saturday morning wasn’t ideal at her age, she said.
But she stuck it out, and at a certain point, when she was able to read and play music without constant input from an instructor, the piano became exciting. You have to put in the work, she said, something she’d pass on to young piano students when she eventually started teaching.
Negrete participated in junior high school and high school drama and show choir programs at Placerita Junior High and Hart High, respectively. And she always got good roles, her dad said. When it was time to go to college, however, Negrete, falling back on that practicality, applied to California State University, Northridge, with a major in kinesiology and a goal of being a physical therapist.
“Within the first few weeks of my KIN 200 (kinesiology) class,” Negrete said, “we were talking more about sports than we were about the human body and science and anatomy. I thought, ‘Why am I sitting here talking about sports? That’s not what I want to do.’”
About two years into her studies, Negrete switched her major to liberal studies/interdisciplinary studies, with a new aim to teach elementary school. But she never got a teaching credential. While in college, however, she took a job teaching kids how to play piano at BigBoxPlay in the Valencia Town Center mall.
“It was my first real job,” Negrete said. “It was a really smooth interview process, and I found out quickly that I got the job, and then I just started teaching. It was wonderful.”
Negrete did that for almost two years. The job ended because the store closed, she said. So, she began teaching piano to young kids privately. She thrived doing that, her parents said.
“She works really well with kids,” said her dad.
Negrete’s mom added that her daughter found a confidence in herself that she hadn’t had before.
Diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in elementary school, and understanding the related struggles, Negrete learned to have a special kind of patience with kids. In one particular instance, she had a piano student with ADHD whose mother stayed with his son during the lessons.
“And she (the mom) would call him out when he was getting frustrated or maybe losing focus,” Negrete said. “It didn’t bug me at all. It was the kind of thing that I wished maybe I had growing up — a teacher who very deeply understood what it’s like. Getting to apply that to the arts is special because there are so many neurodivergent people in the arts. And I love getting to be a part of the community and getting to teach kids, understanding that their brains just work a little differently.”
Fifteen-year-old Ariana Grifsha, who worked as an actress under vocal coach and director Negrete, said Negrete is easy to work with regardless of the types of challenges one might face.
“She’s just such an incredibly kind person and so understanding,” Grifsha told The Signal. “She takes as much pressure as she can off you as a performer to truly give you the best experience in a show.”
When the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic hit and so many businesses shut down, Negrete’s private teaching work ended.
It was while teaching piano, however, that she had performed in the Canyon Theatre Guild’s production of “Elf: The Musical.” After that, she’d volunteer at CTG in various capacities, even during the pandemic with the virtual workshops.
“When we came back,” Negrete said, “I got involved in the first summer program with our oldest group — our teens, which is the Stars — and I stage-managed and I helped vocal direct. I loved it.”
Negrete would go on to work as an instructor for CTG’s ACT III (After Class Theatre) program, the Adventures in Theatre home school/charter school program, she’d direct the summer Stars programs, and she’s currently working in a full-time capacity in a partly administrative role, among other duties.
Her latest work is as vocal coach on the “The Rat Pack Lounge,” which tells the story of legendary crooners Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr., who are up in heaven and summoned by God to return to Earth to resolve unfinished business at a swinging saloon called the Rat Pack Lounge. Featuring a live band and a singing cast, the show offers over 30 tunes from the catalogues of the real-life singers.
Negrete said “The Rat Pack Lounge” is a ton of fun, which very much depicts, quoting the show’s director, “three dead guys who really know how to live.”
As for not being in the spotlight herself, Negrete said she hasn’t given that much thought these days. She’s just loving what she’s doing right now.
For more information about CTG and “The Rat Pack Lounge,” go to CanyonTheatre.org or call 661-799-2702.
