Senior Spotlight: Grayson Breen mixes tech, media

Editor’s note: With the help of staff at our local high schools, we identified a few students who stand out for the challenges they faced in their school careers.

BY LAURA DECORTE

Intern

Grayson Breen prides himself on having a different range of interests than many other students at La Jolla High School.

A dedicated student who took AP statistics this year, his focus is on media and technology.

That’s why he thinks he was selected to be the one of the students chosen for the Light’s Senior Spotlight.

“As a senior, both the drama teacher and the media tech rely on Gray to take charge of any and all lighting required in the school auditorium. At least twice this year, Gray has been called out of class to rescue the light board from a major malfunction,” writes Carole LeCren, his Writer’s Workshop teacher.

Grayson hasn’t always lived in La Jolla, having moved here in ninth grade from Durham, N.C. - a challenge that he has turned to his advantage.

Finding a pathway

“It was a big move where I didn’t know anyone. Tech gave me a home and a pathway through high school. It led me to meet so many people and understand what I want to do with my life.”

Grayson said that other things, like tech and media, were just as important to him as taking the hardest classes.

“My grades are nothing to brag about, they never have been, but that’s not what I’m about,” Grayson wrote in an e-mail. “I think it’s better to not take the absolute classes so that I have room in my life for things that I really love and am passionate about. Those things include “tech, theater, media, drumming and my friends and family.”

Being involved

He says he’s always been a B- student who “wanted to be fully involved in these (tech and media), which meant not taking all the hard classes and having six classes as a senior, so I could take tech all four years of high school.”

Outside of school, Grayson enjoys playing the drums and doing media and tech.

Grayson utilizes his knowledge of technology in order to help out with play rehearsals, a commercial for the bulletin broadcast, sports and PTA dinners by filming and running the audio. Because of his passion for technology, Breen plans on studying lighting design with a minor in sound at Emerson College in Boston this fall.

Says his theater teacher, “Gray is an outstanding young theater lighting designer and light technician. He has the desire and commitment required for a life in the theater, film or rock concert field and I believe he will make his mark and have a highly successful professional life”

In the future

Gray says he plans on joining the film club at Emerson and taking drum classes through a partnership with The Berklee School of Music and Emerson.

Reflecting on his time at La Jolla High, Grayson said, “My school has helped me reach my goals because LJHS has given me so many opportunities to do what I love; they have the equipment so I can learn the basics of lighting sound, and video. LJHS introduced me to my passion of all technical things and allowed me to follow that passion.”

In the future, Grayson said, he hopes to combine his love of music with his passion for technology through working with lighting bands and musical events. Ultimately, he said, his dream is to design the lighting at the Grammys.

Laura Decorte attends High Tech High International.