Taproot Plays Give Students Tools to Handle Bullying

In its latest tour of schools in the Puget Sound area, Taproot Theatre of Seattle tackles bullying prevention and diversity.

The theatre’s road company performed two of its plays, “Allies from Outer Space” for elementary school audiences and “Don’t Tell Jessica” for middle school and high school audiences a half-dozen times in Shoreline schools the last couple weeks. The actors performed at Shorecrest High School, Kellogg Middle School, Room 9 Community School, Lake Forest Park Elementary School and Echo Lake Elementary School.

 A group of five actors finished up at on Friday, Sept. 23 with “Allies from Outer Space,” which deals with feelings of prejudice, defined by the actors as forming an opinion about someone before you even meet them.

“The idea we’d like to leave them with is the idea that they can make their school a safe place for anyone based on how they decide to treat each other,” said one of the actors Laura Bannister.

In “Allies from Outer Space” the alien race, Reptilia lands on Earth, the students at Galaxia Elementary have a new student Komodo (played by Asha Stichter) in their midst. Her mother, the Queen of Reptilia (played by Bannister) wants Komodo to find out if humans have misused the technology developed by Reptilians such as “cypads” and “SpaceBook” to bully each other instead of using it the right way.

While Norm (played by Solomon Davis) takes an interest in and befriends his new classmate, the top student in the school, Star, (played by Caitlin Macy-Beckwith) feels threatened and acts strangely.

Star claims in her school project that Reptilians don’t bathe, eat strange foods, don’t like humans and might be dangerous. The teacher, the robot, Mr. Rumba (played by Josh Smyth), fails her for what he says in an inaccurate report and Komodo feels uncomfortable.

When Star finds Komodo’s cypad left unattended she posts a phony message on Spacebook that makes it sounds like Komodo hates humans.

The 45-minute show takes a few more twists and turns, before a resolution is reached.

During the play and afterward in a discussion with the students the three Rs to address bullying—recognize, refuse and report—are emphasized.

Teachers are given a study guide to work with related to the play during the school year after the actors have gone.

The Echo Lake students and teachers remained quiet during the performance and clapped and cheered at the end.