Last school year, Crescenta Valley High School took a survey of the student body asking whether or not students felt safe coming to school. 22% of the nearly 3000 students responded by saying that they felt unsafe due to some form of harassment or bullying. The administration decided to set up a committee in an attempt to lower that staggering number and the first project it came up with was the original play 22% Fear.
When the survey was given out to the student body, the administration encouraged students who were being bullied to anonymously submit their personal encounters of harassment. CV’s drama teachers Mr. Brent Beerman and his wife Ms. Kathi Chaplar took these stories and incorporated all of them into a Greek-styled play. Written and directed by Beerman and Chaplar, 22% Fear accounts the terrifying tales of actual CV students and their actual encounters with harassment which takes the play onto a whole different level of frightening intimacy.
22% Fear tells the true story of a straight guy being beaten to death because he dressed like a “faggot,” a girlfriend who was brutally abused by her overprotective boyfriend, a gay getting kicked out of his house and having to live out on the streets because his family could not accept his sexuality, a girl who repeatedly tried to kill herself, and many more. What makes the play so touching is that while the students were watching in the auditorium in intimate groups of roughly 200 students, they were reminded that these stories were submitted by classmates and that those victims could have very possibly been sitting right next to them.
36 members of CV’s advanced drama took part in this play. While some told the stories that inflicted pain and sorrow onto the audience, others were scattered around the auditorium, most of them towards the back, shouting slander such as “bitch, slut, whore..” This constant chant of profanity gave the audience a sense of the typical teenager’s subconscious mind. The school has noticed that when students see bullying, they do not try to stop it nor act upon it. Instead, they either add to the problem, or try to pass off as an innocent bystander. The administration, however, has deemed ignorance just as bad as the crime itself.
Last school year, Crescenta Valley High School took a survey of the student body asking whether or not students felt safe coming to school. 22% of the nearly 3000 students responded by saying that they felt unsafe due to some form of harassment or bullying. The administration decided to set up a committee in an attempt to lower that staggering number and the first project it came up with was the original play 22% Fear.
When the survey was given out to the student body, the administration encouraged students who were being bullied to anonymously submit their personal encounters of harassment. CV’s drama teachers Mr. Brent Beerman and his wife Ms. Kathi Chaplar took these stories and incorporated all of them into a Greek-styled play. Written and produced by Beerman and Chaplar, 22% Fear accounts the terrifying tales of actual CV students and their actual encounters with harassment which takes the play onto a whole different level of frightening intimacy.
Beerman and Chaplar spent 6 months drafting, editing, and staging the play for the sake of the community. It is vital that both the entire the student body and the parents of that body know the severity of the troubles that some of the students are experiencing due to harassment.
22% Fear was first shown to the students at CV on Thursday, Feb. 2. The play was then opened to the community on the evenings of Feb. 2-4 so that parents can realize the direness of the situation. The school hopes to raise awareness by giving these victims a voice that they could not find before. Next, CV’s theater troupe plans to show the play at the local secondary school, Rosemont Middle School. Although the play contains harsh language, Beerman believes that the students will be mature enough to handle it and that the priority should simply be to raise awareness.
