Street Scenes

Mundelein Seminary is located right across the street from what I believe is the largest Catholic High School in the country, Carmel High School. Tonight I attended their big annual winter fund raiser which they call “Street Scenes”. Basically they shut the entire school down for a couple of days to decorate all the class rooms to house one act plays and comedy shows and music performed by local talent. They have probably a dozen or so rooms with shows, including a big musical review done by the students in the auditorium. In addition to each show room, there are two waiting rooms for each show that feature live bands and various “beverages” if you know what I mean.

The event runs Friday and Saturday evenings at it is HUGE. They make a couple HUNDRED THOUSAND dollars over these two nights and there are literally thousands of people that pack the place until about 2 in the morning. The corporate sponsorship of this thing is also unbelievable. Every room is sponsored and the performers work “commercials” into their performances. Likewise, when you enter, you are given what looks like a phone book that is full of advertisements for the corporate sponsors. There is some big money in this event. Fortunately, they give the seminary some complimentary tickets and that’s how I got to go, now for my second year.

I did some acting in high school and so I enjoy seeing the shows. Yet, there’s so much to do that you wouldn’t even have to see a show. You could spend the whole night just going to the different music rooms, or food rooms, or even the casino. I’ve really never seen anything like this back before. There are so many people that come that they have to use parking lots all over the city and bus people over to the high school. They come from all over the north Chicago area, and this rather large school is literally packed wall to wall until the wee hours of the morning on both nights. The students put a lot of work into their show as well as just getting the school ready. I don’t know what else to say other than just WOW!