Hello,

For those who don't know this is Ariana Millar. She is an International Student from New Zealand studying in America. She moved to a small town just outside of San Francisco in June 2016. She has been working hard to complete an Acting Certificate at the Santa Rosa Junior College for the last two years and is now one class away from achieving this goal!

Since her arrival Ariana has worked backstage on five of the Colleges productions. She was Makeup Superior for In the Heights and The Little Mermaid, Makeup and Wardrobe crew for Servant of Two Masters and Into the Woods, and Assistant Makeup Supervisor for Shrek the Musical. During Into the Woods Ariana had the monumental tasks of being Assistant to the Director, Understudy to the 8 ensemble members, Dance Captain, helped with makeup and wardrobe, and Backstage Manager. Although she is yet to be on the stage for a Junior College production, she has learned valuable skills working backstage that helped her appreciate and understand how a full blown production comes to life.

For her educational courses Ariana has taken multiple acting classes including Advanced Acting in different styles and Shakespeare. These classes in particular end the semester with a showcase of the students work on scenes and monologues. Ariana has had the joy of portraying a few of Shakespeare's leading women roles such as Juliet, Kate (Taming of the Shrew), Desdemona and Ophelia.

As for off campus shows she has been involved with Redwood Theatre Company and Spreckels Theatre Company. Over the past summer Ariana worked on the original musical Super Trio written by Brett Mollard at RTC. Her duties included Assistant Stage Manager, Choreographer and  Swing to 4 ensemble members. She had the chance to fill in for 3 of these roles throughout the run of the show making this debut on the American stage. During October this year a dream came true for Ariana as she was cast in her dream show The Addams Family Musical at Spreckels. This was one of the most demanding and rewarding experiences she has ever had. Being an ensemble member gave her the chance to sing and dance with so much passion and joy on top of fun character work.

While being a full time student she has also been working part time at the Student Health Services on Campus and due to visa requirements she cannot work more than 20 hours a week which makes it difficult to cover bills, food and fees. Theatre takes up a lot of her time which she is happy to give but along with 8am-5pm on campus for work and school then running off to the theatre until the late hours of the night she finds it hard to keep up with finding ways to help herself financially. She had a very hard year and trying to pull it altogether herself is taking a toll on her mental health as well.

To enroll for the up coming semester she needs to pay her fees before January 14th!! If you or anyone you know might want to help contribute to her education we would appreciate you please sharing this page. Every dollar towards her fees for this, her final semester at SRJC, is one dollar closer to seeing her fulfill her dreams and graduating with a accreditation that she would have been otherwise unable to attain in New Zealand. We thank you with all our hearts for any help you can offer this passionate, committed and driven young lady.