Isabelle Pinard
Reporter

Everyone cleared the decks and lit the lights as senior Marisa Conroy stormed on stage playing the relentless stage mother Madam Rose in the school’s production of the Broadway musical Gypsy last month.

“Marisa has a lot of skills that you normally don’t see in a 17-year-old high school student,” said music teacher Billy Philadelphia. “She has confidence and does a lot of work on and off the stage.”

Conroy started acting at the age of seven at Kids Stock, a summer camp that gives children a chance to enhance their acting abilities. Conroy says there she immediately fell in love with the performing arts.

“It was a great release from school and was a real confidence builder,” said Conroy.

Conroy performs in the musicals and plays in school and as well as participates in the Young People’s Teen Musical Theater Company sponsored by the San Francisco Recreation & Parks Department.

“Acting is like a game,” said Conroy. “I wanted to see how good I can get so I never stop trying to be better.”

Aside from acting and drama, Conroy works with different styles of art. This past summer Conroy worked with other students who do not have art programs in their schools at the Mural Music & Arts Project.

“It was a project where I could reach out to other people through my art work and it was interesting to see how different other people’s lives were,” said Conroy.

Conroy has also been organizing Women with a Voice, an AP studio art class project about how women have been involved in the world and made changes.

“I want to show people what women have been doing for this world through my art work,” said Conroy.
Her skill in performing arts allows Conroy to express herself by using her artwork to send messages to the audience.

“Through visual arts you can put your own personal twist on an object and everyday things and through the performing arts you can put a twist on the character that you are given to play, so that you can show a little bit of yourself in the things you do,” said Conroy.