"Actor, singer, magician, school mascot, coach – you name it I do it."
These are the bragging rights for William Akins, a Merrillville High School student and extremely involved and talented eighteen-year-old.
Born in Gary and raised in Merrillville, William Akins has lived in Northwest Indiana his entire life. Currently a senior at Merrillville High School, Akins also serves as his high school's mascot, magician, and Pop Warner football coach. Akins has many roles, but the most prevalent is his role on stage. In the past four years, Akins has been involved in over a dozen plays, both with his high school and with a local community theater.
"I have always been sort of a dramatic child, but I had never stepped foot on stage," Akins admits.
From a young age, Akins had a flare for drama, though he had never considered a possible future in stage performance. It wasn't until he entered high school that he took his first steps into the spotlight. In the 9th grade, Akins' best friend convinced him to join the choir. Despite his reservations, Akins agreed and he never looked back. He was irrevocably hooked. He craved opportunities to perform and to entertain the masses.
Over the past four years, Akins has not only performed in six school productions, but has also taken part in seven community theater productions with the Ross Summer Music Theatre. His first show was Scrooge, the Musical, followed by Phantom of the Opera, where he played M. Andres.
"My favorite part about the character M. Andres was that he was one of the comic relief characters. I had all the good lines," he laughed, lighting up as he spoke about some of his favorite performances in his acting career.
However, his most memorable and challenging performance was that of Charlie Gordon in his high school's production of Flowers for Algernon, for which he was awarded the honor of Best Actor by the Indiana Thespians. Akins beat out over two hundred other competitors for the award.
"Playing Charlie Gordon was by far the hardest role I've ever had to play," Akins admits without a second thought to it.
Having to show the mental progression of this character was quite a challenge. Essentially he had to perform two versions of one person during the course of the production. What added to the challenge was that not only did Akins have to perform an enormously complex character shift, but he only had less than forty minutes in which to show it.
At the Indiana Thespians regional competitions, nine schools competed against one another with their varying productions for a chance to go on to a final statewide competition. Each school has forty-five minutes to put up sets, perform, and tear everything down, all the while being judged by a panel of three members of the Indiana Thespian Society. Each school was given a place for their production, and a few students are honored with additional awards, such as Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Technical.
"It was surreal to hear them call my name, I actually sat in a state of shock thinking I was daydreaming it all," Akins said.
With so many great experiences under his belt, the question in everyone's mind is: What's next for young Mr. Akins?
"After high school, I will continue to act and sing, studying Music Education at Vincennes University. My aspiration is to be an actor on Broadway," Akins said, musing about the future.
Congratulations and best of luck to Mr. William Akins.