Last weekend, Roberts Creek native 18-year-old Madeleine Burlin lit up the stage starring in Shawnigan Lake School's musical production of Oliver.
The Grade 12 student joined the Shawn-igan musical theatre program in Grade 10 and won the female lead in the musical production of Thoroughly Modern Millie. This year Maddie, as she is known on campus, once again took the lead role as Nancy, the hardworking, gruff woman with a generous heart, in the musical rendition of the timeless Charles Dickens story Oliver.
"It has been a challenge to portray a character with a background so vastly different from my own and to embody the hardships that she endures both physically and emotionally," Burlin said. "But Nancy is extremely comfortable in her own skin, and exudes confidence and self-assurance, traits I have consciously worked at portraying."
Off stage Burlin has equally challenging roles as the head of house in her school residence, Strathcona, and as captain of the women's rowing program.
After graduation, she plans to take a year off school to travel to Ecuador, where she has been accepted into the global volunteer program Latitude, which involves teaching English and assisting in an orphanage in the small colonial town of Cuenca, Ecuador for six months.
-Submitted
