Glen Lake students are set to unleash zombies, nuclear hot dogs, and 1960s beach movie mayhem in their fall production opening tonight at Glen Lake High School.
Attack of The Pom-Pom Zombies will take place today, Friday, and Saturday at 7 p.m.
Children and students are admitted free, while there is a $5 donation option for adults.
Glen Lake eighth grader Evelyn Roeder is excited for the play and confident it’s going to be a good show.
“There are still a few little kinks we need to work out, but I think we can get through those, and I think we can have a good show.”
Roeder plays an older woman who runs a hot dog stand on the beach that starts a zombie frenzy. For the show to be successful, Roeder believes the show needs to run smoothly and the entire cast feels satisfied.
“What’s really important to me is really connecting with the audience so if they can leave and they think they have a good show, that’s success to me,’ Roeder said.
The play will star Laker middle and high school students Addison Beltrame, Ava Popa, Avery Petroskey, Devanie Kamps, Ella Noonan, Evelyn Roeder, Hadley Novak, Landon Scheele, Mackenzie Gordon, Maisy Caroll, Mallory Guffrey, Nala Bronson, Willa Stewart, and Odin Brown.
Glen Lake Theatre Director Rob Stowe and Interlochen Arts Academy teachers Mavis and Natalie Jennings are directing the show.
“(Mavis and Natalie Jennings) are professional actors and performers and have Broadway credits ... The show itself is a silly mash-up of the beach movies of the 1960s. It’s also a zombie movie that sort of meets a beachside town and some nuclear hot dogs infect the place and chaos ensues,” Stowe said. “It’s a silly show, but the students have been working hard since September and I’m excited for them to do the show on Thursday, Friday and Saturday.”
Mavis and Natalie work as theater faculty for younger students including elementary and junior high students at Interlochen.
Stowe made that connection while he works at Interlochen over the summer.
When Stowe, Natalie and Mavis were sitting around the lunch table together, Stowe asked if they would ever be interested in directing a show. Luckily, the locals were gracious enough to say “yes.”
The cast is a mixture of middle and high school students from seventh grade to sophomores.
The program started with a unique audition process that served as a two-day workshop and evaluation of who might play who in the script.
“It turned out that we had 13 students that were interested in the project and the play that we had chosen had roles for 29 people. We had to go back to the drawing board and rewrite the piece,” Mavis said. “I felt very strongly that the actors that were interested were able to put on a piece where they played multiple roles like this one. And essentially, we set out to learn everyday.”
The students would practice 2.5 hours for 3 days a week that had to be delicately balanced with plenty of sports conflicts.
“Almost all of them were involved in some aspect of sports ... there was hardly ever a time where we had like all hands on deck, which made it a little tricky,” Mavis said. “The sessions served as part acting lesson, part working on the show ... I’m grateful that it worked that way because had we not moved into the acting sessions, we would have really had a tough time once costumes and lights and sound cues came into the mix. They were so well prepared because of the fact that we’ve spent so much time sort of in an acting class and not necessarily just working on the show.”
Mavis said this will be a fun play for the kids to perform, especially as characters their age.
The show has a Halloween feel and is based upon 1960s beach blanket bingo movies with Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello. The “Attack of the Pom Poms” will feature a battle between zombies and students. Everything comes to a head when nuclear waste gets mistaken for relish on a hot dog and turns one of the main characters into a zombie that goes on an infecting rampage, before a biker gang and nerds attempt to save their world.
“It’s very slapstick, it’s very whimsical, it’s a farce in every sense,” Mavis said.
