Mundelein High School's show selected for fest

Mundelein High School Theatre's production of “Talley's Folly” has been selected to be performed at the Illinois High School Theatre Festival, which takes place each year in early January.

The festival is the largest and oldest noncompetitive high school theater festival in the world.

This year's event, which runs Thursday through Saturday, Jan. 6-8, will be held at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Each year, more than 4,000 students, teachers, university representatives, exhibitors and volunteers come together for three days to put on more than 25 different high school productions and more than 150 workshops.

“I can't tell you how pleased and honored we are to be selected,” said Jonathan Meier, MHS theater director.

“It is going to be a wonderful experience for our students to perform at such a high-profile event.”

“Talley's Folly” was originally part of a presentation of student-directed plays called “An Evening of Lanford Wilson,” which was performed in early September.

“To have the work of our student directors featured at Theatre Fest is really a treat,” Meier said.

“Talley's Folly,” which will be performed Saturday, Jan. 8, is being presented in a unique fashion, with the first half of the play being presented by one cast and director and the second half by a different set of actors and director.

The first half is directed by Ben Fenton and features Jessie Johnson and Connor Boike. The second half is directed by Luke Cianciotto and features Kate Starck and Jack Davenport.

“It is a unique experience for the audience,” Cianciotto said. “They get to see two separate productions of the same play.”