The DePaul College Prep theatre program started off the 2025-2026 school year off with their fall play, Middletown, written by Will Eno, which takes place in small town America revolving around a close-knit, small town community. Mary Swanson, a woman who just moved into town, reveals the complex personalities and contrasting lifestyles or mindsets of the townspeople as she gets to know them.
The fall play unveils, as Mr. Bryant, the theater program founder and play director, would say, “life unfiltered in its interpretation.”
“We spent a lot of time trying to uncover some of the little mysteries and the little unspoken truths that the play is trying to convey,” Mr. Bryant said. Middletown addresses the typical modern, small town living. Inspired by Old Town, a play written in the past, Will Eno approaches similar themes of life within Middletown years later. He emphasizes the message of this play, which is that “The lives of the people are regular, average, and unremarkable. But it doesn’t mean that they’re not worth living.” Following the philosophical basis created by Thornton Wilder of Our Town, Will Eno expands on it through more surreal takes on the themes of loneliness. Mr. Bryant elaborates further on this, saying, “ A lot of us feel like we’re just saving ourselves for those big moments when, in fact, what we really need to do is be investing in the little ones, the smaller moments. Those moments, the ones that we take for granted, are really the things that make up what our lives are.” Middletown is a play that tones into the nature of everyday life, teaching the audience aspects of life that are typically not brought to attention.
Middletown also contains a romance cut short between Mary Swanson and John Dodge.
Maria Danaher, the student stage manager, said, “… it centers around two main characters who have a connection that they feel could have been something more, had they been in a different place.” Along with the romantic leads in this play, Mr. Bryant emphasized character intricacy saying, “We present characters who are complex, who are not just one thing. And sometimes those characters make good decisions and sometimes they don’t.” All characters depicted in Middletown make many immense contributions to its plot. Noting even the importance of minor roles, cast member Bea Malven says, “Yes, there are main characters and characters with more lines, but the minor characters are still incredibly important to tell that story.”
Mr. Bryant, while reflecting on creating the school’s theater program, says ”We’re different from most high school theaters. We’re not the big musical machine that a number of other places are. We do things about adults in their adult lives and all of the wonderful and complicated things that come out of living.” Through this unique approach, Mr. Byrant also mentions that creating the theater community during the early stages of DePaul College Prep’s existence allowed him to enable its distinguished identity through the freedom of following years of tradition.
“Mr. B always says that we’re a theater company within a school, which means you have to hold yourself as a professional. I think everyone in the theater program holds themself to that standard, that you have to be a professional so that you can be treated as a professional by the director, Mr. B, and by your peers.” Maria Danaher said while describing the theater program’s work ethic. This standard that she describes embodies a core principle that cast and crew members hold themselves accountable to while producing a play during the school year.
When describing the theater program’s importance to the DePaul Prep community, cast member Bea Malven said, “It adds creativity. It adds art because DePaul is still a relatively new school, and so we’re still trying to build our identity compared to other schools that have large artistic programs.” Additionally, she elaborates further on the theater department’s growth over the years. “It’s nice to have a growing and flourishing theater department to add to the DePaul identity. It adds a layer of art and life that I feel is sometimes missing.” As a junior who started off as a crew member to being casted for two roles (woman on date and attendant) in Middletown this year, she notably acknowledges the steps that the theater program takes toward becoming a staple in the DePaul Prep community.
Maria Danaher expands on theater’s importance and stance, applying it to how theater is impacted by A.I. in modern day art. ”It’s art. Especially when there’s so much talk about A.I., and A.I. art especially, art is at risk. So it’s always important to invoke emotion, when we’re sort of losing what that means. We’re lacking a definition at the moment.” Maria Danaher states that the theatre program is important to the school community as “it’s up to individual people to try and keep that human art alive.”
Discussing more on the presence of the theater community in DePaul, Maria Danaher points out that through watching plays, “The topics that are covered in plays, they have a way of developing people because I feel like that the best way to learn more about yourself is by observing.” While connecting this concept that she calls “simple truths,” she applies that to the student body audience and her own student identity. Through the power of watching plays, especially those produced by the DePaul Prep theater community, students and people in general are able to learn more about themselves and just plainly enjoy the performance.
”I’ve had friends who were in the plays that I wasn’t in, and I went to see them.” Bea Malven says as she recalls her experiences watching previous plays that the theater program performed. “And it was so fun, not just because my friends were in the play, but because I got to see people I would see walking around in the halls, and I got to see a whole other side of them.” Through attending the plays, it indirectly contributes to the sense of belonging and community within DePaul College Prep. As Bea Malven points out, seeing fellow peers in a new light brings the community closer together, making you learn more about the DePaul Prep theater students through their engagement in theater.
”There are a lot of people in this school who go through their four years [in highschool] and never see anything we do,” Mr. Bryant says. He encourages the DePaul College Prep student body to see what the theater program has to offer. “It’s a unique part of our identity and of our cultural landscape here at this school, and you deserve to come see it,” Mr. Bryant adds. Since the theater program is hard at work during play season, he hopes that students would watch the fall play since the cast memorizes a lot of material and perform live shows. “That takes a lot of courage to do. We invite people in to see what we do. We hope that they provide some entertainment, even if it’s just for 90 minutes,” he says.
