People : Spotlight on achievers : UCI Graduate Wins Marshall Scholarship

Kelly Maglia recently became the first UC Irvine student in campus history to win the highly competitive Marshall Scholarship, one of the two most prestigious offered to U.S. university students, a UCI spokeswoman said. Maglia, 23, graduated from UCI last June with a bachelor’s degree in drama and music and plans to attend Goldsmiths College, University of London, where she will pursue her ambition to become a playwright.

Only 40 Marshall Scholarships are awarded each year, UCI spokeswoman Susan Menning said. Maglia will receive about $20,000 annually for a minimum of two years to attend the British university.

“I want to be a playwright, and, of course, London far surpasses New York in the amount of theater being done and the quality of theater being done,” said Maglia, an Anaheim Hills resident. “The history of theater, written in English, is much stronger in Britain than it is in the United States.”

Marshall Scholarships, awarded each year since 1953, were established as Britain’s gesture of thanks to the United States for aid received after World War II under the Marshall Plan, Menning said. Only Rhodes Scholarships are as prestigious.

Maglia, who plays piano and clarinet, studied instrumental and vocal music and ballet while attending Canyon High School in Anaheim. She also sang in her high school chamber group and was involved in graphic arts, designing programs and murals with the help of equipment at her family’s Anaheim printing business.

“My ambition was to be a Broadway musical theater performer,” she said. “But halfway through my college career I took my first writing course, and it really clicked.”

She puts Shakespeare at the top of the list of her favorite playwrights, along with Henrik Ibsen and Sam Shepard. Maglia hopes to earn what is called a “joint degree” in theater arts and English literature.