Drama with Bullies

Nick is a high school senior who is deeply committed to acting. Nick explains that drama is not the cool thing to do at his high school, and students who do drama are one of a few groups who are regular targets for bullying. Nick faced a particularly difficult situation when he and a friend were cast in a musical production. Nick was looking forward to improving his singing and dancing skills. However, some of the other students, who had frequently bullied the drama club members in the past, came to the rehearsal and started recording it without Nick’s consent. Nick was unsure whether or how to confront the bullies, who were making him uncomfortable.

Nick is a high school senior who is deeply committed to acting. First performing at the age of seven, he discovered a love of being on stage early on. He enjoys the energy he gets from the audience, and also enjoys being able to step out of his own life for awhile, and into the mind of a character. He is serious about live theater; acting is what he hopes to do with his life.

By Nick’s own admission, drama takes precedence over everything else in school, including his grades and his social life. He works outside of school to help to support his family, and this work also takes up considerable time:

“I don’t have great grades. I actually have—my average is like a B, B-. Usually my homework gets done the period before it’s due. Well, for a while my schedule is that school gets out and I go to drama and I’m either at drama until nine or get out of drama and go to work. For a while I was taking voice lessons, and every Tuesday, I sing with a jazz group. I have a very filled schedule so I didn’t really have much time. But sometimes on the weekend I have time to do homework. It’s not a good balance because right now I basically support myself, I have to work as much as I can … A lot of my social life happens in drama. We’ll go to a rehearsal and we have an hour break during rehearsal to go and get food and come back, and that is when I hang out with my friends. Or, like, on weekends. A lot of my friends—basically I see them when I’m doing whatever activity I met them in. But we don’t go out much.”

When asked if he feels as though he’s giving up anything to be so committed to drama, Nick says no. He acknowledges that to some, it may seem that he doesn’t have much of a social life, but he is happy with his choices and wouldn’t change things.

As Nick describes it, there are a few different reasons people in his school are attracted to theater. For some, it offers an opportunity to build confidence. Just as he appreciates the chance to be someone else for a while, he recognizes that others are able to face things “in character” that they might not be able to face otherwise. He describes some students in the drama club as nonconformists who have found a place where they’re comfortable with being different. He also describes some in his group who are “annoyed by stereotypes” and who are leading a “campaign for the acceptance of anyone.”

When Nick first started performing, he did it because “it was fun, and it was the cool thing to do.” At his high school now, however, it is definitely not the cool thing to do, and the students who do drama are one of a few groups who are regular targets for bullying:

“I’ll be walking down the hall, and I’ll pass a group of football players, and even if they are not sports players, someone who does not like theater—you walk by and they’ll start making fun of you.

With the girls… despite what they look like, there is this area in our school we call ‘the orange lockers,’ because all the lockers are orange, but popular kids line up on either side of the hall and if a girl from the drama club walks through, they will yell stuff at her, like how fat they are, even if they are really skinny. I know there is one girl on our drama club who ended up becoming bulimic because of it, for awhile.”

During his junior year, Nick faced a particularly tricky situation related to his love of drama. He was cast in a leading role in a musical production of “Newsies” being put on at his school. Nick thought that participating in the musical would be a good chance for him to practice not only his singing skills but also to try out dance, as he would be playing a part that would require both types of performance. Although Nick was looking forward to it, he was somewhat hesitant about being front and center on stage.

When Nick attended the first rehearsal session for the musical, he tried his best to let go of his hesitations and focus on learning his songs and dance routines. However, midway through the rehearsal, while the cast was practicing their first big dance routine, a group of students who had frequently targeted and bullied the drama club participants entered the auditorium. Nick noticed that the “bullies” were quietly laughing and had even started recording the rehearsal on their cell phones.

Nick felt very uncomfortable, but none of the other cast members seemed to notice or care. He worried that the videos would be spread over social media by the other students, especially because some of the bullies had large followings, and he didn’t feel that the rehearsal represented his potential, as he was still fumbling to learn the steps to the dances. However, he didn’t want to interrupt the rehearsal or give the bullies the satisfaction of soliciting a reaction from him.

What would you have done if you were Nick in this situation? Have you ever felt that was you loved to do wasn’t “cool” or fully respected by others? How do you maintain engagement in your passions when others might not be supportive?