As a singer, actor and dancer, senior Deirdre Wolf is a triple threat. Best known as Sally Bowles, lead character from this year’s musical, “Cabaret,” Wolf is a prominent face in the senior class. Not surprisingly, Wolf’s killer vocals come from a lifetime of singing. She attributes her love for music to a young dream of being on the radio. Growing up with her eccentric brother, she learned to appreciate the quiet moments, namely the times she spent in the car listening to music.

“At three, I told my mother I wanted to be on the radio,” Wolf said. “At three. I’m surprised I knew what a radio was, go me. I didn’t want to just learn how to sing, I wanted to be classically trained. I didn’t pick the piano, I wanted to screech.”

Wolf found herself with a series of classical teachers from the time of this declaration until she was eight. In middle school, her interests varied widely and included a year of cheerleading and the discovery of self-esteem. Music remained close to her heart, but Wolf couldn’t see a way for this interest to fit into her future and so it fell to the wayside. For a few years, she considered aerospace engineering before deciding that path wasn’t for her. It wasn’t until her circle of friends became involved in the school theater program that her future began to change paths.

“Eighth grade rolls around and there’s a musical,” Wolf said. “My whole middle school scene, that circle was in theater and I’m like ‘okay, you know what, maybe I should try out for this theater thing.’ All my friends were in it, and I felt excluded and I was mad. I got peer-pressured into doing theater.”

Despite her dive into theater, Wolf held onto her engineer dreams up until her junior year. Her freshman year of high school, the engineer goal was going strong, fueled by a schedule filled with intro to engineering classes to help her get ahead. Again, she found herself trying out for the school musical and fortunately enough the former theater teacher, Jerry Blake, took a special interest in her.

“She asked me ‘what are you doing? Are you in Intro to Engineering?’ and I said ‘yes,’” Wolf said. “And she asks if I want to do theatre and I say ‘I guess…’ and then she’s on the phone with the office and she’s changed my schedule to include theater. So, I didn’t go into theater I was thrown into theater. Peer-pressured and then thrown.”

Unlike others in theater, Wolf didn’t start at an extremely young age. Her decision to pursue musical theater came much later in her life, half-way through junior year to be exact. Despite the desire to pursue something to do with music, it took a few years of exploration to cement Wolf’s future in her mind. From an early adoration of music to her talent on stage, Wolf has found that musical theater is the only path for her. She plans to continue her education by majoring in music performance at Simpson College in Iowa.