Community Ensemble Theatre (CET) recently held elections for its student board for the 2025-2026 school year. After the early release on Wednesday, April 23, CET members gathered in the Craft Theater.
“There was a lot of passion, even from the people who couldn’t be there,” Sophomore Eli Feng said. “Everybody really cares about CET.”
There were six positions to be filled: president, vice president, publicity manager, merch manager, secretary and underclassmen representative. The number of candidates for each position ranged from two to five people. Each candidate had to give a speech, with both presidential and vice presidential candidates allotted 1 minute and other candidates allotted 30 seconds.
In their speeches, candidates chose to highlight their values as well as their goals for next year.
“Keeping the feeling of home in CET was a big thing in my speech,” Said Ellora Kirbat, a sophomore who ran for Secretary. “I think CET does become someone’s chosen home, just because of the hours you spend there and the friendships that you make and the community that you all collectively build.”
CHS Juniors Mallory Towers and Paige Plavnick, who ran for the role of Co-Presidents, deliberated intensely about what to include in their one-minute speech.
“It’s so difficult because we only get a minute to talk,” Towers said. “I feel like a minute just does not encompass all of the amazing things about CET, and all the things that we’ve experienced in our time here, and what we want to do, how we can improve, why we’re qualified, all that stuff.”
Two candidates, Ellora Kirbat and Mia Rubenstein, could not make the election in person and had to submit video speeches instead. Although both candidates were disappointed to miss the elections, they made sure to show the amount of love they each have for the program.
“I have a WCC class I’m taking this year, which I love, but I didn’t want that to be the reason people didn’t vote for me,” Rubenstein said. “I am very committed, I think it’s shown that I’ve done all the shows since my freshman year. So I wanted to mention something in my speech. I prefaced it by saying that I wish I could be there, but I need to go to my WCC class. And this is why I’m running for Vice President.”
Not only were these candidates not in person at the elections, but many CET members did not attend the in-person speeches. For the first time, CET allowed online voting. Emily Wilson-Tobin, the program’s adult director, decided it was only fair to let everyone be a part of the program vote, even if they couldn’t be there in person.
The results were sent out the same day at 9:21 PM, announcing the 2025-2026 school year board:
CO-PRESIDENTS: Mallory Towers & Paige Plavnick
VICE PRESIDENT: Mia Rubenstein
PUBLICITY MANAGER: Lucy Lowenschuss
MERCH MANAGER: Kaylee Gadepalli
SECRETARY: Ellora Kirbat
UNDERCLASSPERSON REPRESENTATIVE: Jameson Grice
