Each year, the Mundelein Thespian Society prides itself in producing several plays and musicals for the community, including the annual Fall Play. This year, the MHS Theatre Department has upped the ante by adding another autumn production, “The Election.”
This comedy is the first annual New Faces Play, which is a production for freshmen and sophomores as well as juniors and seniors who have never acted before at MHS. This year’s play is directed by Jeff Harding, an MHS math teacher, and the assistant director is Senior Elise Campbell.

“I’m really looking forward to seeing the end result to how much [the cast has] learned or how much they’ve grown throughout this,” said Campbell.

This is Campbell’s first time in the role of Assistant Director, but she has been involved with MHS Theatre throughout high school. She said that the New Faces Play has been created to partner with the Fall Play in order to boost interest in theatre at MHS.

“Basically, the goal is just to bring people in, to give people experience and to prepare people for the rest of their time at MHS Theatre,” said Campbell.

One new member to the MHS Thespian Society is Saige Louria, freshman. Louria is part of the cast group titled “The Ensemble,” which consists of cast members who have multiple roles in the play and make up an onstage crowd.
Louria is also an independent voter in the play, and what she is voting on is who will be schoolwide president. This is the premise of the Don Zolidis script, where the lead characters Mark Davenport (Sophomore Henry Dumblauskas) and Christy Martin (Sophomore Virginia Zundel) go head-to-head with hopes of being the next student body president.
Louria described the two characters and their personas, saying, “Mark is like, ‘I don’t really care about this; I’m just doing this to do whatever,’ and Christy’s like, ‘I need to win this thing; I need to beat this guy.’”

A character with another central role is Karl Merriweather, the supporting role of Davenport, as played by Joshua Saunders, sophomore. Joshua and his sister Emily, also a sophomore, are both a part of “The Election” as well as the Fall Play “Tartuffe.”

While Saunders is an onstage figure for “The Election,” he is more behind the scenes in “Tartuffe.” He is the Set Construction Crew Chief, and is responsible for leading all set building. Emily Saunders is a Prop Coordinator for “Tartuffe” and a member of “The Ensemble,” like Louria, for “The Election.”

Emily Saunders said that she enjoyed that role.

“We have to do certain parts all as a group, and the group parts are what makes the play great because we’re all together and working as a group,” said Saunders.

Each cast member received their individual roles through an audition. Harding watched as they read certain lines from the script, and then he determined who would fit best in each role.

Harding and Campbell are also working closely with Stage Manager Emma Roswick, junior. The three are combining their talents and ideas to create the production. Campbell said she was very excited, and that so far, everything has gone very well, in spite of the variety of visions presented.

“Mr. Harding is definitely looking to me and to Emma Roswick, the stage manager, for a lot more input,” said Campbell, “so we’ve got a lot of different opinions bouncing around, which is interesting.”

As a result of this preparation, Campbell said that “The Election” will be a funny parody of the current American election process and will be a production worth seeing.
“I’m a bit worried that people are going to discount this play because it’s a lot of new people,” Campbell said. “People are going to think it’s not as good [as the Fall Play]. Not as many people are going to see it. I would like to say that this play is going to be just as good as any other play that we do here. It’s going to be incredibly interesting to watch because of all the new people and new ideas.”
“The Election” will be performed Oct. 29 at 3:30 p.m., Oct. 29 at 7 p.m. and Oct. 30 at 7 p.m. with all showings taking place in the MHS Auditorium.