IB Theater is holding their annual play based on the iconic movie “Mean Girls” with a Shakespearean twist. The IB theater teacher, Lori Thompson, chooses all of the elements of the play from what the play will be about to who plays the characters. 

“I got my role of Gretchen Wieners by memorizing a monologue from the play and reciting it in front of Thompson,” senior Zoё Simmerman said. “We also do cold reads, which is getting the script the day of the audition and getting a random character’s script to read on the spot.”

Thompson decided who played every role by looking at many factors during auditions.

“It comes down to watching that process, and then looking at the individuals as the characters they are auditioning for,” Thompson said. Often, it is very much based on chemistry that the students create in that audition process and the risk that they are willing to take with that character, and then sometimes it just comes down to a physicality that you’re looking for.”

Thompson also decides the play itself every year. This year, she decided to make an iconic movie into a shakespearean play.

“It captures high school so well and all of the different characters of people in high school, along with the themes of social pressure, the keeping up of what high school can bring, and then the topic of bullying and pitting girls against each other,” Thompson said. “Then to take all of that I mean, that’s why the movie is so popular, people can relate to it, of all ages, and then putting it in Shakespeare. Just made it even more interesting.” 

Shakespearean Mean Girls will be performed on November 7-9 at Ruby Zima Auditorium. Nov. 7-8 at 7:30 and 2:30 on Nov. 9.