The high school drama program that helped launch Oscar hopeful Lily Gladstone sees its funding cut in half

A high school stage north of Seattle will have a direct connection to the Oscars stage this weekend. Lily Gladstone, Mountlake Terrace High School class of 2004, is up for an Academy Award on Sunday, and has a lot of buzz around her. Gladstone was nominated for Best Actress in their role in the film "Killers of the Flower Moon," based on the true story of a series of murders in the Osage Nation in Oklahoma in the 1920s.

It all started for Gladstone in the theater scene at Mountlake Terrace High. Jeannie Brzovic was her drama teacher, and Stephen Merlino was her English teacher. They talked to KUOW’s Paige Browning about this huge moment for their former student.

RELATED: Seattle area grad Lily Gladstone becomes first Native American actress nominated for an Oscar

This interview has been edited for clarity.

Paige Browning: Gladstone grew up on the Blackfeet Nation reservation in Montana, but moved to Western Washington when she was in middle school. She has spoken very highly about her experience at Mountlake Terrace. How does it feel to see her up for an Oscar?

Jeannie Brzovic: Well, I just burst with pride. I'm so proud of her in so many ways.

What do you remember about having Lily in your classes and your productions?

A lot of the things we talk about, about Lily now as an actress in Hollywood, and her interest in elevating others, those are the same things that I saw in Lily as a student at Mountlake Terrace. She's always been someone who was supportive of her peers, who elevated everyone around her, who spoke out in favor of her Blackfeet community. She's just always been that person.

Stephen, I understand you created a Shakespeare club so Lily and some classmates could go on a field trip to Ashland Oregon’s Shakespeare Festival. Tell me about that.

Stephen Merlino: We had to have a club, otherwise you couldn't do field trips. So we created this. We didn't do meetings. We didn't have anything like that. The only thing we did was go to Ashland! The Oregon Shakespeare Festival has tremendous educational outreach. We got down there, the kids got to see what it was like to live in a college dorm room and eat college dorm food.

We had acting workshops, stage combat workshops, and physical comedy workshops. It was so much fun, and we also saw five plays. I remember that time as one of the highlights of my career. Then, 13 years later, I was down in Ashland again, and Lily was there as well, but she wasn't a student then, she was actually on the stage. There are some kids that all you need to do is expose them to things and they do the rest. And I feel that way about Lily and that trip to Ashland.

Jeannie, I'm curious about the drama program now. How's the program doing?

Well, it's kind of a loaded question right now. A lot of schools are suffering from severe shortfalls in finances. The first ones that get cut are the visual and performing arts programs. We currently have reduced all of our visual and performing arts programs by half.

And there's fear that there could be more cuts coming?

That's certainly an issue that's on the table right now.

Gladstone's graduating class voted her most likely to receive an Oscar. Now she has a chance. What will you and your students be doing on Sunday?

We have a great big celebration to come together as a support for the theater program. And then we'll go upstairs to watch on the big screen as Lily is presented with her Oscar!

Listen to the interview by clicking the play button above.