Program helps with future plans

One junior at West Port High School thinks working at Disney World would be magical.

Ariana Maruca

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Ariana Maruca would love the opportunity to be a Bella character actor at the popular attraction.

She’s getting practice for such a role.

Last week, she was in the school’s production of The Diary of Anne Frank. Before that show, she was Beatrice Chick in Hairspray.

When she isn’t in school, she enjoys spending time with family, friends, her two dogs and attending Meadowbrook Church.

Maruca has been in the school’s drama program for the last three years.  She’s one of a dozen students working to raise funds for a trip to the 2010 Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

WestPort High Schoolis the county’s magnet school for the arts. The school’s drama program was one of 48 schools, out of the 2,000 nominated, and invited to perform at the prestigious festival in Scotland.

The drama program was nominated for the festival by Earl Weaver, the department chair of the musical theatre department at the University of Central Florida and Mary Britt, the executive director of the Ocala Civic Theatre.

In making their final decision, judges, all theatre professionals, reviewed the last three years work, including the curriculum taught, shows the drama department has produced, news articles and correspondence and photographs of students’ work, Janet Shelley, drama teacher said.

While at the festival the group will perform several times.

They had, at first, hoped to put on a production of Theophilus North but they couldn’t negotiate the rights for that play.

“The playwright will not let us cut the show to fit the Fringe Festival 2-hour time slots, Shelley said.

Instead, the group will perform a play about 911, “War at Home” by Nicole Quinn and Nina Shengold.

“We will be presenting the United Kingdom premiere of the show,” Shelley said.

Since the invitation was extended to the festival, students planning to go to Scotland, parents and Shelley have worked to raise money for the trip.

Maruca has been on a letter-writing campaign to her family and friends of the family to raise the funds she needs. She also participates in the fund-raising efforts the group continues.

Currently, the students are short $35,000 of the necessary $90,000 to make the trip, Shelley said.

Those wishing to donate to the cause may send donations to the West Port High School, Drama Department, 3733 S.W. 80thAve., Ocala, Fl., 34481. For more information, call 291-4000.