Theatre and English teacher Mrs. Thompson, otherwise known as Mahaffa, has been running Portage High School’s Thespians Theatre Department for several years. She has been growing and improving the department with every show. I recently had the pleasure speaking to her about some thoughts, opinions, and ideas on this year’s fall play.
This year’s show, Reunion (After the End of the World), was written by Chicago-based playwright Will Quam. Mahaffa was surprised that she chose this play as she had her heart set on another one.
“But fate—and a free script from the publisher—had other plans. I picked this one on a whim because it sounded interesting, and once I read it, I was hooked.”
Mahaffa fell in love with the characterization and setting of the play.
“Two things stood out immediately: first, these characters actually sound like real high school students dealing with real-life struggles. And second, the world of this play offered endless creative possibilities for our incredible tech crew.”
Because Quam lives so close, Mahaffa surprised the cast and crew with the chance to speak to him about the show.
“Any time I get the chance to speak directly with a playwright, it’s time well spent,” Mahaffa said. “Quam shared insights I never would’ve known otherwise—like how this play began as an idea for a theater company that wanted something written for teens, ages 12 to 17. Maybe that’s why the dialogue feels so real—because much of it is. We have the playwright’s blessing to make it our own—to make it Portage.”
The playwright left many things unanswered to allow each school to make the show unique to them.
“We don’t always get to choose what happens to us, but we do choose how we move forward. Still, to bring this world to life onstage, our crew needed to make some decisions. After all, if the story involved a giant flood, we’d need to show exactly what that would look like at Portage High School. In our production, we decided on nuclear fallout similar to what happened in Chernobyl, Ukraine in 1986.”
This year’s fall play premieres Friday, November 21st at 7:00 pm, with following shows on Saturday, November 22nd at 7:00 pm and Sunday, November 23rd at 2:00 pm. Tickets can be purchased ahead of the premiere at https://portageperformingarts.ludus.com/index.php.
