The 18-year-old is:

an international development student at the University of Ottawa;

a social activist who volunteers at the Siloam Mission and raised over $100,000 for a Senegal village, and a member of Students Without Borders, and;

playing the title role in a fringe show called pornStar.

The latter is likely to raise eyebrows around home in St. Vital.

"I hope you include all the good stuff I've done to balance out the scandalousness of pornStar," she says tentatively, in a way that makes it difficult to know if she is kidding.

The usually upfront graduate of Collège Jeanne Sauvé has not been as forthcoming about her role as the dorky lesbian librarian-cum-adult film queen in pornStar. The Chris (BoyGroove) Craddock-penned drama debuted here to big crowds at the 2005 festival when DePape wasn't old enough to see it.

"It's just the title; I don't know if they would be OK with it," she says. "I'm worried about my dad's reaction. A father doesn't want their daughter to be a porn star."

They know she is performing in She Rules With Iron Sticks, which she wrote and premiered at the Ottawa Fringe Festival in June. The inspiring story of a baton twirler, it's more family friendly.

While she has no personal experience that could inform her performance of pornStar, she is on more familiar ground in Iron Sticks. She was a member of the Greendell Baton Twirling community club team from the age of 8 to 13 and remembers with much embarrassment the tight sparkly body suits she wore.

"People have no idea that there is a whole baton-twirling world that exists out there," she says. "It's wild. With my play I wanted to expose that world."

It was one of her girlfriends who had met Craddock who suggested pornStar as another fringe lark. The girls and producer Ryan Segal had teamed up as 15-year-olds to present an earnest drama about a dead teen called In Between.

"This certainly a step up from what we're used to doing," says Segal. "We're usually the cute trio doing cute stories about teenagers and now we're doing pornStar."

DePape portrays Esther, the daughter of an anti-sex-for-recreation crusader, whose boyfriend made a sex tape that is up for an award at a porn film festival.

DePape found Craddock's message about coming out of the closet and gay rights appealing.

"At first I thought it was exciting because I had never done anything that risqué," she says. "I wondered what people would think if I was to do something like this.

"It's just a play and Esther is just a character in a play."

She knows she will have to perform some fancy moves to keep her parents from finding out about pornStar.

"They know I'm doing Iron Sticks but don't know much about this other show, and I don't want them to," she says.

kevin.prokosh@freepress.mb.ca