BOULDER -- Jefferson High School drama teacher Linda Piccolo got to star in her own drama this summer.

Piccolo jokes that she was arrested twice in the same day, once in Russia and once in France.

Due to an error on her Russian visa, she was thrown out of Russia by a beefy, bald, no-neck, Russian customs agent and sent back to Paris.

The scene was a bizarre cross between a Cold War drama and a slapstick comedy.

"It was so scary. It was such a nightmare," Piccolo said, of the ordeal -- being manhandled in the St. Petersburg airport. "It was like a really bad movie."

After being shoved back on a plane and landing in Paris, she was escorted off the plane by French police.

Soon there were scenes of a confrontation with a rude American Embassy worker, the friendly intervention of a Russian, and a mad odyssey in cabs, chasing around Paris to jump through the hoops to get a new visa.

Ultimately, she stepped off another plane in Russia just an hour and a half before her cruise ship was setting sail.

And there was another happy ending when she got home.

A letter from Playscripts publishing house announced they wanted to publish her original play, "Curse of the Pharaoh Queen."

First performed by Piccolo's advanced acting class last November, the play centers on famous detective writer Agatha Christie solving a murder mystery during a trip to Aswan, Egypt, with her archaeologist husband.

It's full of action, murder, intrigue, Egyptian history and, of course, a mummy's curse.

"I love Agatha Christie," said Piccolo.

The play was inspired by Piccolo's 1996 visit to the Old Cataract Hotel in Egypt, where Christie stayed with her husband while he was on a dig.

Piccolo admits she's thrilled.

"I just want to be published," she said. "I just want to see my name in print."

She's already researching a sequel and has been busy Googling exotic poisons for future murders.

Quirks of fate

It's not just this summer's events that have added a theatrical spin to Piccolo's life.

In art as well as life, timing or just a few words can turn a plot, or a whole life.

When Piccolo was in high school she was planning to be an attorney.

She wanted to take advanced speech class. But when she showed up to register at Helena High School, no such course existed.

"I really think you should take drama," the principal suggested.

"In one split second, it changed my life," said Piccolo.

Drama teacher Doris Marsolais Marshall, was "bigger than life," she said.

Marshall had been recognized as the best high school drama teacher in the United States in a 1953 article in "Reader's Digest."

She also co-directed the Old Brewery Theatre, Helena's nationally renowned summer theater.

Piccolo found herself following in Marshall's footsteps. On Marshall's advice, she earned a bachelor of fine arts in theater and a minor in speech and English at Montana State University.

In 1971, fate again intervened in Piccolo's life.

After sending out 48 job letters, she'd gotten no response.

One morning she went for an interview at Helena Public Schools and got a job offer; that afternoon she was offered a job in Massachusetts.

But for a twist of time, she would have made her career in Massachusetts, she said.

Another quirk of fate would intervene several years later.

After she had left teaching to have children, Piccolo was working for Qwest in a program aimed at helping high school students stay in school to graduate.

"I was in Butte in April 1990," she recalled. "A Butte teacher urged me to get back into education."

He told her Boulder was looking for an English teacher with background in speech and theater.

As she drove home from Butte, she saw the sign for Boulder. She looked at her watch and it was 4:15 p.m. On a whim, she drove to the high school and found a secretary. She was told, "Here's the application. The job closes at 5."

Piccolo's been teaching drama and English ever since. This will be her 19th year.

"It's these little things that can change a life," she said.

Since she arrived in Boulder, she's definitely changed her students' lives.

Her program won three state championships in competitive drama, a silver and a bronze within a seven-year period, and she was chosen Montana drama coach of the year.

Her students also won two national championships -- the prestigious American High School Theatre Festival Award for Excellence -- in 1996 and 2005.

Changing lives

"I think the theater has to be the safest place for a student to be in high school," Piccolo said. "When they are there, they can be anything they want to be for six weeks of the play and three nights on stage.

"Everyone has to be accepted and embraced for the uniqueness each person brings. It is the epitome of teamwork."

From the lights, to the sets, to the props, each student relies on the other members of the cast and crew for a successful production, she said. If the doorbell doesn't ring at the right time, or the lightning crash at the right moment, or an actor enter stage on cue, the play falls apart.

"Theater teaches teamwork, it teaches acceptance, it teaches to go beyond yourself and live your dream," she said. "It's all about acceptance -- accepting other people for what they can bring into your life. Theater does that brilliantly."

Her students couldn't agree more.

"I love Linda," said former student Robynn Wing Culver. "I love acting. She really inspired me to act and be on stage. She's so passionate about what she does. It's fun to work and learn from her. What she's teaching you is heartfelt. Every ounce of her heart is in what she's doing."

For Brittney Berger, a recent JHS graduate, drama was life changing.

"Taking her drama classes have made me less shy and helped me come out of my shell," said Berger. "She can take just any kid and make them feel special and wanted. She has a gift for making them feel they belong."

All the world's a stage

The teaching isn't confined to the classroom and stage. Piccolo has led her students around the world -- 16 trips so far. This summer, it was seven countries in 16 days. (They weren't on the Russian trip, however.)

From the top of the Eiffel Tower, to the canals of Venice, to Anne Frank's attic in Amsterdam and the concentration camp at Dachau, the students were introduced to history and culture.

"She took us to Hampton Court Palace, where Henry VIII kept his second-to-last wife before he beheaded her," said Berger. "We got to go to Verona and see Juliet's balcony. We went to the colosseum in Verona. We got a great life experience, and we couldn't have done it without her."

Piccolo loves to show them the world.

"It changes them. It empowers them. You can sit in Boulder and think it is the center of the world."

But once they visit another country, "it transforms them."

On the Web

Click here or here for previous articles on Linda Piccolo.

On stage

Watch for Jefferson High School theater productions this coming year:

"Charlie and the Chocolate Factory"

"Sound of Music"

"Steel Magnolias"

"Murder in Peace Valley."

Reporter Marga Lincoln: 447-4074 or marga.lincoln@helenair.com