Albaugh as Adolfo Pirelli in Meridian’s production of “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.” (Photo Courtesy of Chrissy Henderson)

The dedicated thespian, junior Will Albaugh, will play Oberon – king of the fairies – in Meridian’s rendition of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” by William Shakespeare this April.

His interest in theater began when he was only five after his mom signed him up for a theater camp, and he has been fiercely committed to theater and artistic endeavors ever since. His first role was Oliver in the camp’s performance of “Oliver Twist.”

“It was a wonderful experience and I just kept doing theater after that because I really enjoyed it,” he said.

Albaugh continued with theater productions at Creative Cauldron through elementary and middle school, and began participating in school theater productions in ninth grade. He has been in five high school productions, both musicals and plays, including “Pippin,” “Ruthless,” “The Love Doctor,” “Frankenstein” and “Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.”

“My favorite has probably been ‘The Love Doctor’ because I prefer plays to musicals, it’s always fun to do a comedy and my role was so fun I got to go crazy and wear big hoop skirts.”

“Shakespeare is so much more difficult than the modern stuff we typically do,” he said. “I could tell, especially during callbacks, how hard it is to perform and understand.”

New productions come with new costumes, new castmates, a new story to tell and a new role to become acquainted with.

“My favorite part about starting a new show is getting out my highlighters, analyzing my script and just getting in my character’s head.”

Although Albaugh is only a junior, he has high hopes for college, and plans to double major in education and theater.