[ATTENDED: May 23, 2016] S.T.O.P.
If you have a teen or pre-teen and you are concerned about how they will deal with bullying, sex, body issues or, heaven forbid, heroin, this performance is a must-see both for your child and you. The performers are all high school students. They wrote the pieces and they are intended for high school students (and middle school). If you can’t see them yourself, contact your school or community group to arrange for them to do their show. It is intense and really effective.
When the fifth grade completed the D.A.R.E. program at school, the ceremony included a piece by this group. The piece was called “Jack & Jill” and it told the story of how an underage party led to the death of two teens. There were a couple of moments of humor, but the message was intense and the acting was really good (they “rewound” the story and the actors did a great job of going backwards–including one boy who “fell up” the couch (he fell off it earlier).
After they were done, they said that the troupe would be doing their full hour-long show in May and that was open to anyone in 5th grade and older. I was amazed that Clark wanted to go as it’s not really his thing. And so we went. He was bummed that only a couple of kids he knew showed up. I was bummed at how few people showed up at all. And so I wanted to post about the show to get the group some recognition because what they did was really powerful and I think should be seen by just about everyone.
When we arrived, the teacher in charge of the group Miranda DeStefano-Meene told us that the show would be uncensored and pretty intense. The program says that the words on stage “may embarrass, hurt, offend, scare and anger you. That is intentional.” The second paragraph spoke of the heroin epidemic in our society which is bigger than any other drug epidemic in recorded history, which I did not know.
And so we sat back and watched this show. Now, I happen to think that Clark may not have been exposed to a lot of what was going on in this play (which I’m grateful for). So this show may have been really intense for him (I know I spent the whole show wondering what he thought). After the show the only thing he said was that it made hm sad. And we did talk a little about the messages, but he’s a tight-lipped kid, so I can only hope he’ll come back to me with more questions if they arise.
And what questions he must have. For this show tackled so many problems facing teens. (more…)
I Just Read About That... 