Kai Lou Yue
Business Manager

As the school year for seniors of the 2014 class draws to an close, WA will be losing many talented students who have contributed a great deal to school activities such as sports, academic teams, and other after school clubs. In senior Nick Nudler’s case, he will be leaving WA’s theater department.

When he reached high school, and throughout his acting career at WA, Nudler participated in various theater productions given by Westford Academy Theater Arts, also known as WATA, often in one of the leading roles. Some of his most notable roles include playing the part of Raoul in Phantom of the Opera during his freshman year, as well as the parts of Che Guevara in the musical Evita, and Jean Valjean in Les Miserables during his junior and senior years respectively.

However, Nudler will be moving on from WATA as he will be graduating WA and attending the University of Connecticut in the upcoming school year. Out of the six schools he applied to, he was accepted into four including the University of Connecticut, Boston University, Rutgers University, and New York University.

“University of Connecticut was not my first choice at first […] NYU was my first choice for a long time, but I chose University of Connecticut because it made the most sense for what I wanted to do, which was have a very small intense program rather than be part of this big university,” said Nudler.

Nudler intends to pursue a Bachelor of Fine Arts in acting, essentially a concentrated program in the study of acting, which Michael Towers, the director of WATA, believes he will succeed in.

“Nick has been accepted into several of the top [acting] conservatories in the United States […] [He] is without question one of the finest actors that we have ever had, and there’s reasons for that, and only part of it is what you might call talent based. Nick’s a hardworking actor. He does his research. He explores his topics,” said Towers.

Going to university for a BFA was not a spur of the moment decision for this actor, however. According to Nudler, he has known for a while about following through with his passion for acting.

“There wasn’t much of a question for me after sophomore year. I just knew that I wanted to be an actor and I knew that going to school for this […] was going to be the best way for me to be successful, and to get the training that I needed to go into the professional field with the tools that I needed,” said Nudler.

With college decisions made, Nudler still looks back on his experiences with WA’s theater arts group with fondness, and remembers the lessons that WATA has taught him as an actor and a person.

“Hard work always pays off for those who put it in. I think that’s the biggest thing that WATA has taught me; you can’t put 50% in, you have to put 110% into everything, or else you’re not gong to get the result that you want,” said Nudler. “Never settle for anything less than your best.”

However, Towers, among others, believes Nudler to have qualities that make him stand out as a human being, as well as an actor.

“Nick’s qualities as a human being exceed his qualities as an actor […]  everything that you see him do on the stage and the tremendous level of success that he has, that is exceeded by his compassion for others, by his willingness to lead by example, and through work ethic, kindness, gestures and actions he makes in the best interests of others, self sacrifice, and his suppressing of his own individual wants for the sake of the whole. These are qualities that quite honestly we don’t find often in teenagers,” said Towers.