Meet the ‘next Lin-Manuel Miranda’ — a Mountain Elementary 4th grader

As Niko Powers rehearsed last Friday morning alongside his fellow fourth grade classmates for the performance of their musical this Thursday evening, he felt ready for parents and guardians to watch their work come to life. 

For Powers, the 9-year-old writer of the musical’s script and its nine songs, the night of the performance brought extra excitement. He stepped outside of the school’s performing arts center and listened to his classmates as they sang and rehearsed with their theater arts teacher. 

“Everybody’s doing it, and it’s looking good,” he said with a bright smile. 

Mountain Elementary School District Superintendent Megan Tresham believes Powers’ “Building the Railroad” musical is the first student-written musical performed as part of the school’s longstanding theater arts program. For at least the past 15 years, the single-school district, located above Soquel Village up Old San Jose Road, has had each grade perform one play or musical during the school year. 

Earlier this year, when the fourth grade class was deciding which musical or play to perform, Tresham said, Powers voted to have a performance about the railroad. When his teacher, Zoey Turek, said that they didn’t have a play about the railroad, he started writing one. 

Powers loves trains, and loves writing. He said he’s written maybe 15 books spanning topics like Legos and airports, to a bank robbery on a highway. This was the first time he wrote a musical. He said it was hard and took time, but his favorite part was writing the jokes. 

Theater arts teacher Sheila Cliff said Powers “could be the next Lin-Manuel Miranda.” 

His mom, Alison Stimpert, said through tears that she and her husband, Dan Powers, are very proud of him. 

“It’s been amazing to watch,” she said. “He’s always been a kid who wanted to fix a problem. They didn’t have a musical on the topic of the railroad. And he just said, ‘I can do that.’” 

The transitional kindergarten through sixth grade students all participate in the projects at a level of their choosing – from taking on lead roles to helping put together the stage design and costumes. With funds from the school’s parent club, theater arts teacher Cliff spends two weeks with each class guiding the students through the rehearsals leading up to their performance.  

Each school grade generally has a play it performs every year, and, during a typical year, these 21 fourth graders would have performed a musical about the Gold Rush called “Gold Dust or Bust.” But when fourth grade teacher Turek found out Powers wrote his own musical about the building of the transcontinental railroad, she helped the class take on his brand new script. 

The first transcontinental railroad was built between 1863 and 1869 and connected the eastern U.S. rail network in Iowa with the Pacific Coast in Oakland. 

Turek helped edit the musical, divvied up roles for the students and printed out the scripts for the students. A parent and the school’s band director helped put music to Powers’ lyrics. The fourth grade class took on the roles enthusiastically. 

Tresham said Powers is “one of the most interesting kids” she’s ever met. 

“In terms of how thoughtful he is, how detail-oriented he is,” she said. “The thing I think is also very special is how invested his classmates are in seeing this vision come to life.” 

Fourth grader Asa Casey-Jones said he’s really excited to perform the musical. He plays a news reporter.

“It’s really amazing how much work Niko put into this,” he said. “I was blown away.”

After watching him perform in the annual plays over the past three years, Stimpert said the experience has been “hugely valuable” for her son. 

“The confidence that they get from taking on the roles and performing in front of people, and the camaraderie the students develop from taking on a big project together, it’s great,” she said. “I’ve seen so much growth over the past three years.” 

Research has shown that students who participate in theater arts earn higher scores on standardized critical thinking tests and have better attendance records than students who don’t. 

Stimpert recalls how he realized how much Niko enjoyed theater in second grade, and last year he took on a bigger role in the play and sang a song alone in front of the audience. 

“I couldn’t believe it,” she said. “I couldn’t do that.” 

Superintendent Tresham, now in her fourth year at the school, said she’s proud to carry on its tradition of theater arts, especially having gone to a school with a strong arts program when she was young. She said students – and their parents and teachers – get to see themselves achieve things they don’t have the opportunity to do otherwise. 

“It’s magical. I’m never not surprised. Like, I didn’t know that kid could sing,” she said. “You see them develop a presence and a confidence that they didn’t have before – a sense of self, a vulnerability that is validated by the caring response of the audience.” 

Mountain Elementary School fourth graders will perform “Building the Railroad” on Thursday, Nov. 21, at 6 p.m. at the school, 3042 Old San Jose Rd. in Soquel. Admission is free.

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