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This year's Talawanda High School musical, "Thoroughly Modern Millie," will be Thursday, April 17 through Saturday, April 19.

"Thoroughly Modern Millie" follows the life of a young women moving to New York to start a new life in New York City.

For Mayank Anana, this sort of performance is very new. He is studying at Talawanda for the year as a foreign exchange student through the American Field Service and this is his first musical in America.

"I've been in small plays for four or five years," Anana said. "But they were mainly street plays."

Anana says the street plays he did in India are very different from his first musical.

"It involves a lot of shouting, the emotions are different," Anana said. "There is also a lot more involved and you make the plays up yourself it is not all totally scripted."

Another difference Anana notes is the number of plays a high school will do in one year.

"It's different in school over in India, we don't have just one big play we have many smaller ones," Anana said. "Also, our plays are more dramatic and taken from a religious background."

The musical aspect of "Thoroughly Modern Millie" is unlike the music in performances in India.

"There are no instruments in the plays I have been in," Anana said. "All of the music is recorded beforehand."

In the Talawanda High School musical, Anana is playing a Chinese character and has been faced with the challenge of learning Chinese.

"I knew one Chinese word before this," Anana said. "I have been working hard to get the actual pronunciation of the words down right."

Anana says he would take his iPod to the corner during practice and listen to it over and over to get the words and the songs right.

"I have probably heard all of the songs about thirty times," Anana said.

Anana has been happy with his work in the school musical.

"Everyone is really supportive of me here," Anana said.

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