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Jeffrey Trumbower
Playing for Justice
Playing for
Justice
by Faye
On
a Saturday in late February, a group of about ten people gathered in the
basement of the UU church. Although they all were different ages, and
had different stories to tell, they all came to collectively write a play.
On one side of the circle Norma Bowles and Sarah Guerrero began by telling
everyone they and their colleagues fly all over the county to help groups
find their voice through theatre.
The first day, we collected
stories from everyone in the group. One group member told about a protest
where an anti-gay protester showed up, and began to shout and wave signs.
All of the protesters surrounded him, dancing and playing music. Soon
he became frustrated and left peacefully. Another told about her negative
experience coming out to her church community as trans.
The next time we met, Norma
and Sarah had typed up a transcript from the voice recording. We all read
it over, and talked about what parts of it were most powerful, and how
we could adapt the stories to break down stereotypes, and be most meaningful
to our target audience: high school students who try hard to fit in, and
just aren't sure how they feel about queers. By the end of the night we
were trying to decide the best way to put all of our stories into one,
short, but intensely effective play. We left that night, not sure if we
should give our message a comic tone, or make it into something a bit
darker.
Overnight and throughout the next
morning Sarah and Norma worked on finding a balanced way of presenting
our message. Finally Sarah had a eureka moment, and they speedily composed
a general outline for "The Reel Deal." The play would be a youth-hosted
movie review show. It would include people's stories as clips from movies.
Between clips the hosts would have a chance to talk about what the audience
just witnessed, and there would also be the opportunity for PSA announcements,
which promote Outright, talk about transphobia, and encourage youth to
make a difference.
We spent our three hours that
night improving the dialogue that would happen in the loosely written
scenes. Once again, Norma and Sarah took all of our dialogue to their
hotel to type it all up, but this time, their creation would be the first
draft of our script.
Our next two days were spent
paring down the script to make it a more succinct, 30-45 minute play,
composed essentially of the three movie clips. The first is a romantic
comedy about two girls who fall in love in high school, including the
girl's friends and ex-boyfriend's responses to her new relationship. The
next is a screwball comedy about a young man in high school who is afraid
to tell his friends and girlfriend that his dad is gay. The last is about
a trans young man who is not understood by his teachers or peers.
Since Sarah and Norma left, the TSJ
group has congregated twice. The first time, we discussed the future of
the production, the second time to gather potential actors and prepare
for a reading. We decided the reading would be an awesome way to gather
feedback about our script and get a feel for what it looks like onstage.
We will hold two more rehearsals before we present our script at Youth
Pride.
Faye is a student at Burlington High School and has been actively
involved at Outright for the past year. She is in charge of BHS's GSA
and is co-directing “The Reel Deal” with Jen Berger.