Westford Academy’s theater arts program has produced many plays that have been praised by so many people for their storyline and actors. One of the most committed actors to the program over the past four years has been Anthony Giovino. Now, as a senior finishing up his high school career, Giovino is moving on to college to pursue a career in acting.

Next fall, Giovino will be attending the University of Connecticut to get his BFA in Acting.

“Basically acting is the best thing I can do. It’s the thing that gives me the most joy; it’s my passion. So to do anything else would be disingenuous to who I am, to what I want in the world, which is to be an actor,” said Giovino.

Giovino has been involved in theater for almost eight years. He started in fourth grade at a small theater company known as Drama Kids, which he loved. He stayed there until he found the Summer School for the Performing Arts, a summer camp for theater at Westford Academy.

Giovino’s involvement in the WATA program has affected his decision to be an actor. It showed him how competitive the field could be and his theater experience in high school helped him gain a sense of humility.

“I was a top level actor here for the past couple years, but even still, there were always people better than me, always people I was looking up to, saying I need to be like them,” said Giovino.

Giovino has a lot of fond memories as a member of WATA. His favorite production was the production of “Arabian Nights”. However, Giovino said his most accomplished production as an actor, as well as the most memorable one, was his role as Gordon in Westford Academy’s Massachusetts Educational Theater Guild Festival submission of “Dead Man’s Cell Phone”.

“That was me saying, ‘I know what I can do well, and I’m going to do the best job I can do for this play.’ I’m very, very proud of that show in particular because that was a culmination of everything I had learned as an actor,” said Giovino.

As for the idea and experience of theater itself, Giovino most enjoyed the feeling of being on stage and getting the reactions of audience members during performances.

“The audience makes me alive. The audience brings something new to the table for me. I can be good in rehearsals […] but doing something that you have never perfected because, art is not perfect, but worked at and worked on and created something beautiful. When you can show that to an audience, for me, there’s nothing more special,” said Giovino.

Giovino has gained the confidence he needed by earning successful roles in productions at an early age. He believes that confidence is key when it comes to acting in order to have others be confident in you.

“You have to have confidence, because of you are not confident in yourself, the director, who’s casting the show, isn’t going to be confident in you, the music director isn’t going to be confident in you that you can sing the note, the actors aren’t going to be confident in you that you’re going to be good on stage with them when you’re acting in scenes,” said Giovino.

Although Giovino is ready to depart Westford Academy, there are a lot of aspects to his high school experience that he says he will miss. Most of all, he will miss the stage he has been performing on for the past seven years, and where he feels he really left his mark there.

“I said my goodbye not too long ago, and I still don’t want to say goodbye. Even now, I prohibit myself from going in [the PAC] as much as I can, because I know the more I go in, the more I can acknowledge that I can spend time in there, the harder it’s going to be to really say goodbye,” said Giovino.

As he wraps up the year, Giovino is directing the Black Box production of “Holy Ghost,” written by Ryan Dunn. “Holy Ghost” is the final play in the trilogy “Father,” “Son,” and “Holy Ghost,” all of which will premiere on Wednesday, May 11.