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Helping to heal wounds in times of national tragedy has become a calling in recent years for the IUPUI A.C.T.-Out Ensemble.
And so it was again, recently, when schools in Colorado asked the social-issue theater troupe to perform a play about youth violence and conduct a workshop on conflict resolution in the wake of a school shooting that took the lives of 15 in April.
A.C.T.-Out led a conflict resolution workshop at Dakota Ridge High School in Littleton on Sept. 10 and performed Battered Souls at the University of Colorado-Denver on Sept. 13. The communities where the troupe performed still are recovering from the events at nearby Columbine High School in the spring, said Jessica Weiner, founder and director of the A.C.T.-Out Ensemble.
"Officials there certainly are committed to healing their communities," Weiner said, "but it was obvious that there has been permanent damage."
A.C.T.-Out is sponsored by the IU School of Liberal Arts and the American Cabaret Theatre and is operated by IUPUI English professor Claude McNeal.
A.C.T.-Out originally was invited by the University of Colorado-Denver to perform in an effort to confront the issues that have surrounded the violence in nearby Littleton. Weiner said representatives from Columbine High School were invited to the campus for that presentation, and word of A.C.T.
Out's planned appearance spread from there. The result was a total of three shows in Colorado that touched on issues ranging from youth violence to date rape.
"Because of the Columbine incident, the issues of tolerance and conflict have become crucial for schools," said Mary Ellen Hanson, assistant principal at Dakota Ridge. "We're trying in every way we can to help students understand that conflict is something they're going to have to deal with their whole lives and not to resolve it in unhealthy ways."
Weiner called A.C.T.-Out's work in Colorado a success, but said she and others in the troupe were disturbed by what they saw there.
"I can't explain it other than to say it was a strange silence," she said. "The reception of our material was really wonderful, but people there are tired of talking about the incident. And they need to talk about it."
Among those in the audiences at Dakota Ridge and the University of Colorado-Denver were former Columbine students.
For the A.C.T.-Out Ensemble, an eight-member troupe of professional actors who create plays on a variety of health and social issues, the performances in Colorado confirmed the importance of their work. Last year alone, the group performed before 30,000 people in audiences across the United States. Past performances have included a play on date rape before a Northern Illinois University fraternity accused of being the scene of three rapes, as well as a production about drug and alcohol abuse before students at Purdue University following a student murder-suicide in which drugs were said to have been a factor.
"Our mission is to use our performances as a catalyst for discussion," said Weiner, who scripts the troupe's plays. "During the interactions with audiences in Colorado, it hit home for us as a company that we're doing the right thing."
For more information about the A.C.T.-Out Ensemble, or to schedule a performance, call 317-278-2530.
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