As he rounds off his last year, senior Joe Kappeler has built an impressive resume in S*T*A*G*E. As a sophomore, he was in “The Diary of Anne Frank,” and was in “Les Miserables” as Marius. In his junior year, he was in “Noises Off” and “Into the Woods” as The Baker.

Kappeler has seen himself improve through the years, but he believes that he developed the most from sophomore to junior year.

“The transition was apparent because my level of confidence dramatically increased and I no longer felt uncomfortable performing,” he said. “The [role] models I had as juniors and seniors also helped me acquire acting abilities.”

Kappeler found “Les Miserables” to be the highlight of his S*T*A*G*E career, as it was the first show in which he played a lead role.

“‘Les Mis’ is, I guess, that show that high schools typically can’t pull off, but WJ had the chops for it,” said Kappeler. “I feel like we just kind of owned that show, without trying to sound as arrogant as possible,” he said. “[It was a] fantastic show, extraordinary music, one of the few shows that can really, really bring a tear to my eye. “

Kappeler is currently working on “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”, which premieres on Nov. 15, 16,22 and 23. The play keeps all of the Shakespearean language, but the setting is during the 1960’s at the beach.

“It has an interesting take, it’s obviously really strange with the whole beach theme, but I think we have a great group of newcomers, who I feel pretty confident in for future years,” said Kappeler.