Scaring 'Em Straight or Preventing Tragedy With Theatre


Every year across our country, American teenagers attend their high school proms. According to every teen movie ever made, prom night is to be full of debauchery. Alcohol assisted antics are expected. Virginities are to be forfeited. In short: it’s supposed to be a night to remember.
            Yet all too many American high-school students remember their proms for a different reason. The mix of alcohol, drugs, and general teenage recklessness is a nasty combination in reality and “according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), for the past several years during prom weekend, approximately 300 teens have died in alcohol-related car accidents.” The NHTSA goes further, saying, “one in three children under the age of 21 who died in the alcohol-related accidents died during prom and graduation season.” Even typing out this statistics, I’m a little shocked. (Statistics pulled from "Prom, Death and Sexual Assault" from the Huffington Post)
            My high school, determined not to feed into these bleak statistics, hosted a special “Think and Drive” event every year the week before our prom. Classes were cancelled for the day and all of the students in the high school (since we were such a small school Sophomores, Juniors, and Seniors were all able to attend our prom otherwise there would only be around sixty kids there) participated in what was essentially a series of game-like drunk driving simulations. There was the beer-goggle video game where you attempted to drive an arcade-style car while wearing goggles that impaired your vision in the same way several beers might. We got into a semi to check out the blind spots that the drivers have to deal with. There was a physical obstacle course and, of course, several guest speakers who emphasized how quickly your life could take a turn for the worst if you chose to get behind the wheel of the car after drinking.
            But my senior year our principle wanted to make even more of an impact. The week before Think and Drive was supposed to take place, he reached out to several of the acting students, myself included, and asked us to be a part of a special simulation. This is what was to happen: after the assembly featuring the guest speakers, the entire high school would exit the theatre to find a crumpled up car in the parking lot and our bodies strewn about as though we were victims of a car wreck. Then the paramedics would arrive and evaluate and respond to the scene just as they would in a real accident. I agreed, intrigued by the drama of it all.
            The day of the simulation arrive and it was a cold Colorado day. We got to the theatre early, spattered ourselves with fake blood, headed outside, and gruesomely arranged ourselves on and around the wrecked car. It started to snow lightly which only fed the bleakness of the scene. I was shaking a bit, from cold and adrenaline and used it to feed my “acting” as I cried out for help. We heard our classmates come out of the theatre. Some people gasped, I think a few were crying. I didn’t have long to lie on the cold ground, as I was one of the first to be loaded into the ambulance.
            Afterwards, people were very upset. Something about seeing their friends and classmates on the ground spoke to them in a way that was more real than any video or beer goggles could ever hope to be. Being the small school that we were, there was no anonymity; each "victim" was recognizable. It was an interesting approach to the idea of “scaring kids straight.”

Manifesto:
            We must not stray from that which scares us, that which is ugly, that which we don’t care to see or think about. We must look it directly in the face and say to these things “I see you.” And in seeing them, we have the power to confront them and to change them. The monster hiding under the bed keeps us tethered to top of the mattress, unwilling to even dangle a toe over the side for fear of being dragged into the underworld. Yet when we face the monster and see that it is nothing more than a phantom created by our imagination, we regain our freedom to roam around the room. In facing our fears we gain understanding. And in gaining understanding we take back our power. Our power provides us with the ability to choose our own path and in doing so, we may shape the world around us.


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