On May 30, 2025, Moorestown Friends School’s Drama Club performed “The Greek Mythology Olympiaganza,” the club’s first completely student-led play in over five years.
The play was directed by Drama Club officers Trent Iacono ’28 and Sanaa Rodwell-Simon ’28, and the play was decided by the club members. The play presented a summary of popular Greek mythology in a comedic 45-minute production. The play began with creation myths such as “Pandora’s Box,” “Jason and the Argonauts,” and “Cronos and the Titans,” and culminated with a five-minute performance of “The Iliad.”
At the one-night showing of the play, over thirty community members attended. One of the attendees, Gauri Kulshreshtha ’26, noted that she “really enjoyed” the production. She added that the “absurdity” of Greek mythology contributed to the “fun experience” of the play, and the humorous and short-paced nature of it encouraged the audience to take a deeper look into Greek mythology on their own time.
In past years, the Drama Club attempted to produce a play; however, many of these attempts failed due to academic burnout that often occurred by the end of the school year.
According to Rodwell-Simon, the play was successfully produced due to her “if you start it, you need to finish it” mentality that she brought to the Drama Club throughout the year.
At the curtain call, Holli Kitching, Upper and Middle School Drama Director, said, “A lot went into [the] production in a little amount of time.”
The idea for the production of the play emerged in February of 2025, and the Drama Club members spent under three months preparing for the entire play.
Cast member Noah Frizell ’25 stated that because of the time crunch, things were “a lot less certain,” especially during Tech Week.
“We were on book for a lot longer, but we eventually got it done anyway.”
Rodwell-Simon and Iacono stepped into leadership of the Drama Club as ninth graders, an accomplishment that is unusual in the Upper School. Despite this, Rodwell-Simon noted that being a ninth grader as the club officer did not influence their ability to produce the play.
“Grade levels didn’t really influence leadership in terms of co-Presidents because Trent and I had the idea to restart [the Drama Club play,] so we just assumed those positions. When it came to choosing who would direct the play, we offered everyone the opportunity to help direct, but no one was really eager to do it, so Trent and I also assumed the roles of directors,” Rodwell-Simon said.
Some of the logistical aspects of creating the production included finding times to rehearse, as rehearsals for the production primarily met during the school day — a task that proved to be difficult for the leaders.
“Overall, it was a lot more work than I expected it to be, which was definitely stressful at times, but all that work just made me feel ten times more accomplished at the end; I felt so proud during bows knowing that all of my hard work paid off and that we had put on a great show,” Rodwell-Simon said.
Frizell, the production’s only senior cast member, stated that he “had a great time” acting at MFS for the last time.
“It was being around the people for one last theater experience with this community that I’ve built up and that I’ve grown to love throughout my time here,” Frizell said.
