“The Wolves” premiered at Eastern Illinois University in Doudna Fine Arts Center’s Black Box theater on Thursday at 7:30 p.m.  

Directed by Anne Thibault, the associate professor of Eastern’s department of theater, the play follows a group of soccer players that go through the hardships of being teenage girls and learn what it means to be themselves.  

“[‘The Wolves’] is really about coming to adulthood, how we see ourselves, how we grow and find[ing] themselves,” said Thibault.  

Ellis Mansfield, who played number eight in the show, said they enjoyed the all-female cast and loved the show’s authentic language that mimicked what real-life teenagers would say.  

“I think this is the only show that I’ve seen that actually represents what high school girls actually talk like,” said Mansfield. 

Christopher Gadomski, set designer for the plays and for all shows at Doudna, said the play wasn’t difficult to design for. Instead, Gadomski said the hard part was finding and buying props for the play as Gadomski is also the prop master and technical director.  

“I’d say there were less props in this play than in some other plays,” Gadomski said. “This only had about a half a page of props, but still the props that were involved, or rather required for this play, were very specific.”  

Set design for “The Wolves” was very different compared to other plays, he said. This set had a turf grass carpet with soccer nets on both sides to give off the idea of a soccer field and protect the audience from the soccer balls the actors use throughout the play.  

Trendan Campbell, a sophomore theatre major, went to see the show. He said he was very disappointed that the show only ran for one week. 

“My only grievance is that you really do have to go more than once to understand it,” said Campbell. “It’s not showing for two weekends so that people can’t fully understand.”  

One of the other audience members was sophomore computer and information technology major Jadon Mejorado who liked the show because the set was very different from other plays he has seen.  

Mejorado said the show reminded him of an old sitcom with the oddness of the play’s dynamics with the characters running on and off stage.  

“It reminded me of the sitcom ‘Friends’ in how the characters interacted with each other throughout the play,” said Mejorado.  

Mejorado said he would like to see more of the play as well.  

“I’d say it was alright overall,” Mejorado said. “I would have liked to see maybe, like, clips of the [soccer] game actually taking place.” 

Rob Crownson can be reached at 581-2812 or at rjcrownson@eiu.edu.