Student play attacks bullying

AUSTIN (KXAN) - When you are 13 years old, you look up when a high school student walks by. You look up at him and you look up to him.

"I remember when I was a kid, if a regular adult was talking to me about this sort of thing [bullying[, I'd brush them off," said recent high school graduate Boni Rosales, 19. "But now we're actually kids around their age group and they're actually performing a play and putting visuals in it. I think they pay a little more attention because they sort of look up to us. We're sort of what they're going to turn into."

Rosales is in his first semester at Austin Community College , but he's still a member of the mostly high school student cast of Changing Lives through Theatre Ensemble , a group of young thespians put together by Safe Place and the Theatre Acting Project .

He and his fellow cast members are touring a play about bullying to local middle schools, home to the raging adolescence that breeds bullies by the boat load.

"The medium through which we're doing it, it's not like we're going to middle schools and just lecturing them," said cast member Jessica Norriss, 16. "It's through real-life plot, which they can hopefully relate to; and then showing them how to stop or how to stand up for themselves or what they need to do, as opposed to, 'This is what you need to do.'"

"They really look up to us," added cast member Kristal Jackson, 17. "Everywhere we go they want to talk to us; they want to high-five us; they want to act like our friends because we're older and we're in high school and they think of us as cool kids because we're older. I really think that they look up to us."

"Their play tells the story of Claire, a new girl in school, who on her first day on campus finds herself in the crosshairs of a jealous girlfriend and her name on the keyboards of virtually every cell phone in school. Vilified and tormented by her new classmates, the girl is reduced to tears, isolated and comforted by only one fellow student, the first boy she met. He's just being friendly, but his jealous girlfriend launches a bully attack on the girl that leads all the way to an 'ihateclaire.com' website.

"Bullying is a very serious problem," said Catherine Flores, a 7th grade counselor at Webb Middle School , one of the stops on the ensemble's tour. "I feel like it was back when I was a student, but I think it's gotten even worse now with MySpace, Facebook, text messages. It's kind of just reached a whole new level."

The actors, too, have their own experiences with bullies.

"I actually have experienced bullying sort of through my name," said Rosales. "Just because my name is Boni, every since I was in elementary, you sort of got those kids who would poke fun at you: 'Oh, your name is Boni, Boni baloney.' I guess it sort of stopped hurting me, but you know, every now and then, I still feel a little hurt about it."

"I would ask a lot of questions and I'm always in the front of the class and I'm always the one that needs help," added Norriss. "So basically, I just got picked on for being like too eager and too involved. It's hard because it's like you try to really care about something and people---I don't know why---just want to put you down."

Jackson has no specific bullying recollections from her own life, but she is well aware of how much damage can be done.

"Every year, teens commit suicide because of cyber bullying, because of being bullied in class," she said. "Their parents don't listen to them about it; their school doesn't listen to them about it. Every year, stuff like that happens and it's always in the news and people don't take it seriously enough."

Sometimes, the gravity of the problem hits closer to home. One cast member tells the story of someone very close to her: She's been picked on her entire life. Now she tries to act like it doesn't bother her, but if something ever gets her down, the immediate thing is: 'Well, I'm useless; I'm going to commit suicide because there's no point to this. I'm stupid; I'm dumb.' Because she's been told so many times that his is the way she is, she doesn't know how to have any confidence. She has no self-esteem anymore because she's constantly being beat down. No matter how many times you tell her it's not true, it just doesn't matter."

"A lot of parents, even teachers are unaware of how common it is," said Flores, the counselor. "I talk to kids about this weekly, daily sometimes. A lot of fights are now starting via the Internet or text messages or phones. The impact of bullying is huge on kids. It affects their self-esteem. Sometimes they're scared or nervous to go to school and that's the last place that you want a kid to be scared to go to; that's where they need to feel safe.

But more and more adults are listening, including the managing artistic director of the ensemble, Susie Gidseg.

"When my students come in and talk about cyber bullying, kids that have never even thought that what they were doing was wrong kind of have an 'Ah-hah' moment,"