Student Actors Help Peers See Devastating Effects of Bullying (With Video)

Four teens arrive at the Youth Theatre and filter into a minivan bound for Massillon Middle School.

All four, at some point in their lives, have felt the sting of bullying — a problem many schools, from grade school through high school, are struggling to curb.

The student actors — Misty Weick, Allison Zarnes, Nathaniel Brumbaugh and Sarah Jane Toy — remember the hurt as they perform the social issues drama I Have a Secret throughout schools in Northeast Ohio.

The play, written by local playwright Brenton Cochran, is designed to provoke meaningful discussion among students, teachers, administrators and parents. Woven into the script is information on the types of bullying: pack or individual bullying, verbal and emotional bullying, social exclusion, sexual bullying and cyber-bullying.

North Canton Patch tagged along on their recent trip to perform in Massillon.

ON THE ROAD

After arriving at the parking lot of the North Canton Playhouse Youth Theatre at 7:30 a.m. and finding their seats in the van,  the students rattle through their lines, in turn, with an energy most adults don’t even experience after four cups of coffee.

They don’t know it yet, but they’re about to perform in front of their youngest audience yet — fifth-graders. They’ve performed I Have a Secret dozens of times, but you always run a risk of a rowdy or unreceptive crowd the younger they are, they said.

Weick, a student at Kent State University’s Tuscarawas Campus, takes a second to explain what happens if students try to turn the play into a joke. (And, when you are talking touchy subjects with middle-schoolers, that’s likely to happen.)

“Middle-schoolers laugh at you for the first 10 minutes, then they kind of settle down after they realize how serious we are doing the play,” Weick said, adding the students’ reactions dictate how the four actors perform.

“I can lay it on them harder when they’re not listening,” she said.

GETTING INTO CHARACTER

Weick plays Kendra, a high school student who’s excited to start over at a new school, but she faces the same problems as before: students picking on her for being overweight.

She said the character of Kendra was based on her own life experiences. And another character, Brianne (performed by Zarnes), was based on her sister’s experiences. Brianne is teased for being dyslexic and tries to take control of her life by not eating.

Toy plays Jessica, an outcast who wears clothes and makeup that are different than her classmates. She said she relates to Jessica because the two girls aren’t that far off; Toy also tends to get strange looks for dressing outside the box.

STUDENT REACTIONS

After performing for the fifth-graders at Massillon Middle School, the actors walked off the stage, ready to assess their performance.

“Was it just me, or was there a lot of sniffling?” Zarnes asked.

She was right; during the entire play, sniffles could be heard throughout the crowd — many more sniffles than snickering. In fact, the laughing did wear off within the first few minutes of the play.

After the performance, the students got a chance to answer and ask questions. Students didn’t seem embarrassed to talk about the social issues brought up in the play; they seemed eager, with hands shooting up in the air when questions were asked.

On the ride home, gave her thoughts on why more and more schools in Northeast Ohio are hosting the bullying play.

"They’re bringing in the bullying play because they have a bullying problem,” she said. "And that’s the reason we’re getting such a big response. It’s in every school."

Weick chimed in, saying she knows the play has a positive impact on the students. She recalled one experience with a student after a show.

“She was just absolutely a mess. She was crying, and the teacher informed us she went through a lot of what Kendra had gone through. She had thought about taking her life.

"I had questioned whether this was working or not, but after that I knew.”