Now 17, Abu has just returned to his Wagga home after spending a week in intensive classes of a very different kind – a scholarship program with the prestigious Bell Shakespeare Company in Sydney.

Abu was one of just three scholarship winners selected from 110 applicants.

The experience has left the Year 12 student brimming with enthusiasm not only about an acting career, but also about classic theatre.

“They were absolutely incredible,” he said.

Abu’s first experience with the company was a breakfast gathering, but then it was straight down to work.

“We did some rehearsals for Antony and Cleopatra, which is a show they are doing and she (star Catherine McClements) is phenomenal,” he said.

“They gave us a book (of the play) signed by the whole cast.

“The rehearsal process is so amazing. Every time they try out something different, something new, to make the scene better, it is just incredible.

“And the whole ensemble is on stage the entire time, so it just looks some much more generic and natural when they do it. It was just amazing.”

Abu’s experience extended beyond simply watching the company’s actors at work.

“We did some workshops to help us with our Shakespeare master class, to just break down Shakespeare and understand him better. It was to get a clear concept of what we are actually saying in our monologues, so that was incredible,” he said.

“Then we worked on our monologues again to perform them for the cast. The associate director James Evans did it, and he was phenomenal.”

The budding thespian also toured NIDA, the Sydney Opera House and Foxtel’s facilities.

”I think I found a new appreciation for Shakespeare entirely,” Abu said.

“We were talking about why he is still relevant and they were saying it's because he changed everything.

“He changed what story-telling was about. Before him, they were putting caricatures on stage, and he put real people up there.”

Abu’s experience has convinced him that he would like to pursue an acting career.

The teen has had some experience with singing and dancing, and is as keen to try lighter musical comedy as he is to perform the works of The Bard.

For now, he is focusing on his HSC studies and part-time job, as well as working to expand his acting resume.

“I love living here in Wagga,” he said.

Abu’s family began the process of leaving Sierra Leone when he was nine.

His family was looking at starting a new life in either Australia or the United States, and utlimately settled on Australia.

“Australia is safer. It’s a better place,” Abu said.

Abu’s family, including five siblings, his parents and grandparents have now made their home in Wagga.

“A couple of years after we left Sierra Leone, they had the ebola epidemic.  We had family friends who suffered from it. It was devastating,” he said.