Carolina Saverin is the Palmetto High School Silver Knight nominee in Drama. Saverin, a senior, has accumulated more than 1,400 service hours for her work in drama alone and she says she earned another 1,500 hours for other activities.
“I’m a part of a corporation called Miami Children’s Theater and I constantly perform in their show,” she says.
Miami Children’s Theater is located at the Dave and Mary Alper Jewish Community Center. Saverin was introduced to the company by her voice teacher and she began volunteering and acting there during her sophomore year.
“My first play was Fame,” she says, adding that her role was that of Iris Kelly, the main dancer. “I’ve also been in Violet; it’s a show about a girl named Violet. When she was young, her dad worked at a farm and he had a saw. The blade came off and cut her face and she goes on journey to find a tele-evangelist who can heal her scar.” She has also been in the play On the Town as a featured dancer, Into the Woods and Les Miserables.
While she spends a lot of time at Miami Children’s Theater, she also performs in the Palmetto drama productions.
“At Palmetto, I was Trish and Tiffany in The Laramie Project,” she says.
She was the assistant director for the play The Laramie Project and she’s playing Amber in the upcoming production of Hairspray.
Saverin began acting at Pinecrest Elementary School where the chorus teacher was also the director for the school’s musical. She went on to Palmetto Middle School, which had a drama program, but she danced instead. In her sophomore year of high school she went back to the theater.
“I wanted to be a singer,” she says, adding that the drama teacher introduced her to a voice teacher who promptly told her to audition for a play.
“I said absolutely not, but she told me to audition and she trained me,” Saverin says. “I auditioned, got the lead role and I fell in love. I’m very thankful to her.”
Outside of drama and school, she volunteers for Habitat for Humanity with a Jewish youth group that began at Bet Shira, but has moved to Temple Israel. They usually work on a Mitzvah Day.
“We paint houses, build and do whatever they need us to do,” she says. “We paint offices sometimes and we even put down sod. There was one time that we worked on the air conditioning vents.”
At Palmetto, Saverin is in the Leo Club, a group that schedules and promotes blood drives. She is also in the Thespian Honor Society and in a new organization called No Place For Hate.
“Basically, we advertise no bullying. I’m new in it,” she says.
She is also a member of the HIV AIDS Peer Education team.
“There is a day that is HIV Peer Educator day,” she says. “We go into all classes and we talk about safe relationships, safe everything. We answer questions and we go over facts.”
Last month, Saverin was one of the MCs of Panthers Got Talent, the Palmetto talent show. She wanted to audition for the show, but missed the deadline to turn in the forms and asked if she could MC instead.
Saverin has been accepted into a number of colleges including Emerson’s acting program, Columbia’s musical theater program, Florida International University and Florida Atlantic University’s musical theater program.
By Linda Rodriguez Bernfeld
