Arts Student of the Week: Victor Valdez-Aguero

When Victor Valdez-Aguero was a young boy, his father was a big car enthusiast. "He owned a few dozen cars imported from Japan," Valdez-Aguero said. "A few Ford Mustangs--Shelby GT 500s. He owned muscle cars like Corvettes. C3s from 1981, a 1979 Pontiac Firebird, and a couple of Mitsubishi Lancer Evos."

Initially, Valdez-Aguero thought that learning about cars was too complex and he didn't pay much attention to them, but in his early teens he started asking to help his father work on them. At first it was a simple oil change in the driveway. Then he started to develop an interest in the more mechanical aspects of cars like the cylinder heads and the head gaskets.

"And that evolved into an interest in technical theater," Valdez-Aguero explained. "Because when you work with cars, you have to work a lot with bolts and washers, screws and clips. When we're building most of the sets, we have at least a couple hundred dozen screws on the set to keep it secure. We use bolts to rig up the lights, and the rigging system requires about four-inch bolts because it weighs about one thousand pounds when it's fully loaded."

According to Jason Watkins, technical director for theatrical productions at Niwot High School (NHS) who selected Valdez-Aguero as the Arts Student of the Week, Valdez-Aguero is an absolute rock for the NHS performing arts community. "He is dependable, highly motivated, and his experience is unmatched," Watkins said. "Victor is leadership material through and through. He always demonstrates the ability to take charge and complete tasks with the minimum of supervision and instruction."

During his first few years at NHS, Valdez-Aguero did not consider himself much of an athlete. "When I started out in freshman year in technical theater, I was a short, scrawny kid and I didn't have much muscle," he explained. "But as the years went on, and the more two-by-fours I carried, the more plywood I had to lift, I started developing more and more strength.

"It wasn't until this year I started my first year of ironworks class and I started enjoying lifting. When I first started out, I couldn't lift two-by-fours higher than my head. But as I started working more on stretching out the muscle, I got more range of motion. In technical theater we have to get into awkward positions, because when we're working on a scaffold, it's uneven, and we have to either crouch or stand up holding onto the railing while screwing in a flathead screw. And it can get pretty awkward."

As a technical theater student, Valdez-Aguero has studied with Watkins since his freshman year. "Mr. Watkins has taught me many great things about craftsmanship and the theater program," Valdez-Aguero said. "I have learned how sets are built and how to run sound for concerts, how to follow blueprints correctly. I've managed the sound for a dozen elementary school concerts and that is an experience I truly enjoy. It is an opportunity most high school students my age don't often get to experience. And it has also enriched my personal life. In technical theater I've developed a disciplined work ethic and I've learned how to work with my peers as a team."

Valdez-Aguero believes the program is inspiring for those students who want to learn theater, who want to develop a great work ethic, and who are willing to cooperate with their teammates. "It is one of the best theater programs in the St. Vrain Valley School District," Valdez-Aguero said. "And the second biggest theater in the whole school district, with a capacity of 777 seats."

The life skills he has learned include how to use power drills, power saws, and how to measure and cut wood. He has also gained experience with technology, operating lightboards, soundboards, and video cameras. "It prepares kids for success," he said. "It gives them something to build off if they want to pursue their career. And it's a really great program overall."

As a senior, Valdez-Aguero is enrolled in a mix of AP and IB classes, and because he has all the high school credits required to graduate, he wants to focus this year on self-development. He said that the first three years of high school with COVID were really rough, starting off with online classes and transitioning to hybrid classes.

His enthusiasm for the theater got him through that difficult time, and now Valdez-Aguero is able to share that passion with others. "The best part of being a third fourth-year student is that every year we get new students into the class, and we take them on tours of the theater. We show them backstage, the dressing rooms. We show them the workshop where we build. We show them the loading dock where we cut wood and we try to make a great first impression on them. The goal is to get these kids intrigued about what we do and show them the benefits of being a technical theater student. And we try our best to give them a great sense of how the theater industry works. We show them the basics of light programming. We show them how to wire up actors' mics. We show them how to control the volume to make sure that the sounds don't reverberate back into the receivers. And we show them how to cooperate as a team."

Now in his senior year, Valdez-Aguero has been busy working on several Capstone projects. He made the set for one of the school's homecoming dances--a Mardi Gras theme inspired set with balloons and painted walls. "Rundown walls," he said. "We painted those with sponges, and a little bit of light feathering on the edges to give it the rundown feeling of back when New Orleans was founded. It was one of the original port cities and so I wanted to give it one of those port city feelings, with the structural integrity of New Orleans and the history behind it."

He is currently working on his second Capstone project, setting up for the winter ball. The theme is Candyland. "I'm going to have to rig up the scaffold, set up points where we want to hang the backdrop." And for prom, Valdez-Aguero has a few plans in the works which he is not yet ready to reveal.

Although he has a good job at Noodles & Company, working about 24 hours a week, Valdez-Aguero plans to transition to college, where he would like to major in cybersecurity with a minor in technical theater. And he still has a passionate interest in cars. "I have a 2004 Nissan 350 Z," Valdez-Aguero said. "It's well maintained, about 104,000 miles. It's been a great little car."

"His hobbies and interests outside school also help make him more diversified and adaptable to overcome unique challenges theater will throw at him," Watkins said.