At last year's Fem Fest, I played a role in the workshopped piece Ripple Effect. It was a piece about the causes and effects of bullying in high schools. The message was an eye opener, small things can cause a "ripple effect"; they grow and grow into situations considerably larger from those that started them. It cautioned us all to take greater care in the actions we take in our daily lives.
I played the role of Sarah, a social misfit who expressed a darker sense of fashion and taste. She was the target of cyberbullying and verbal bullying in her school. Her story takes her through a complicated high school drama that escalated into her being beaten and hospitalized. Her storyline was wound around another story which was occuring in the same school; a boy who was in a similar situation was led to bring a gun to school.
The play was toured in high schools in Winnipeg and Selkirk during the Fall of 2008.
At Fem Fest 2009, I workshopped a piece which was later titled No Offense... It was a play designed to raise awareness of the effects of racism. The piece was created in a period of about two weeks and was based off of the true stories of the people who attended the workshop. Norma Bowles from Los Angeles and her colleagues Amanda and Flint from Chicago brought the project to Winnipeg. Together with Sarasvati Productions, a show was produced and presented at Fem Fest 2009.
I played the role of Raven Baptiste, an aboriginal girl who battles with cultural discrimination. Her story starts with a fight, and she finds herself in the principal's office. The office is set up like a courtroom and throughout the play the events leading up to the fight are explored in flashbacks from witnesses. By the end of the play you realize that things aren't always what they seem. Racism resides heavily in the school, and even the principal himself is biased.
Right now, No Offense... is working with Sarasvati Productions on developing a high school tour hopefully beginning in the fall of 2010.
