Post by CCADP on Apr 6, 2006 6:53:28 GMT -5
High drama
Teen actors at Hartley tackle weighty issues in ‘Dead Man Walking’
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Charlie Roduta
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
SHARI LEWIS | DISPATCH
Mia Bennett, left, stage manager, and Alex Reifeis, prop manager, read the script.
Before a rehearsal at the high school, cast and crew members of Dead Man Walking pause for a moment of prayer.
SHARI LEWIS | DISPATCH PHOTOS
Hartley senior Erica Shannon rehearses a prison scene as Sister Helen Prejean.
The tough and gritty Dead Man Walking should pose almost as big a challenge to the audience as to the Bishop Hartley High School students performing it.
‘‘The play is an emotional hurricane," said sophomore Cristin Day, 16, who plays a reporter in the death-penalty drama. ‘‘You can’t walk out of it without feeling something."
This week, the Roman Catholic high school on the East Side will become the first central Ohio school to perform the play since it was made available to high schools and colleges last year.
During the 2004-05 school year, actor and director Tim Robbins, who wrote the screenplay, allowed only Jesuit high schools and colleges, which emphasize social justice in Catholicism, to perform the play.
For 2005-06, all schools have been granted permission to stage the play.
The drama, based on the 1993 memoir of Sister Helen Prejean, reflects her experiences as a spiritual adviser to Death Row inmate Patrick Sonnier in 1982. Sonnier, convicted of killing two teenagers, was executed in the electric chair at Louisiana’s Angola State Prison.
The play’s title refers to the phrase called out when a Death Row prisoner is escorted to execution.
The Hartley cast and crew hope their production, opening Thursday, will prompt debate and discussion on the death penalty.
"The play doesn’t give an opinion," said senior Stephen Bennett, 18, who plays fictional Death Row inmate Matthew Poncelet. "It really makes you see both sides."
In the play, Poncelet, sentenced to die for the rape and murder of two teens, exchanges letters with Prejean, played by senior Erica Shannon.
As the execution date looms, the nun learns more about the prisoner and the families of his victims and gets an intimate look into the Death Row system.
The script for the high-school and college productions was adapted by Robbins from his screenplay for the 1995 film. The film was directed by Robbins and starred his partner, Susan Sarandon, who won an Oscar for her role as the nun, and Sean Penn as the convicted killer. Dead Man Walking was also made into an opera that has been performed in seven U.S. cities, including Cincinnati.
Director Judith Manley said the script Hartley is using has undergone slight changes to the language but doesn’t pull punches.
"It takes us to a place we don’t want to go," she said. "But we must go there. The play forces us to face the grim realities of the execution process. By emboding Sister Helen Prejean’s spiritual call to witness for both the victims of the crime and of the execution, our students and audience can transform some of the guilt that diminishes all of us."
Sister Maureen Fenlon, national director of the Dead Man Walking Theatre Project in Louisiana, said the play creates an intimacy with the characters that the movie does not.
"It’s not just the issue, but we’re dealing with the human story," said Fenlon, who is from New Orleans. "And the human story is not black and white."
As part of the project, schools performing the play are asked to study capital punishment in the classroom. At Hartley, students are talking about the issue in religion class and Manley’s English class. Government teachers might also include it in their classes, Manley said.
The idea behind the project is to create a national discussion about the death penalty, said Fenlon, who plans to watch Thursday’s performance and talk to students and staff.
"This is a life-and-death issue," she said. "The work of Sister Helen and the work of this play is trying to create discourse on a major issue that has not really been brought to the light of people’s attention."
The theater project is part of the Death Penalty Discourse Network, an organization dedicated to prompting discussion on capital punishment. The network has a nationwide campaign seeking a moratorium on executions.
The issue is gaining momentum.
Last year, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops launched a campaign calling for Congress and state legislatures to abolish the death penalty.
A Cleveland social-action group called Catholic Students for Peace and Justice has spent the past four years raising awareness about the death penalty. Before the four most recent executions at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility near Lucasville, the group has held prayerful protests.
On Monday, more than 200 Catholic students who are part of the group will stage a rally at the Statehouse to try to get lawmakers involved.
"It’s somewhat hypocritical to teach someone that killing someone is wrong when we’re killing someone ourselves," said Augie Pacetti, a theology teacher at Padua Franciscan High School in Parma, a Cleveland suburb, and one of the co-chairmen of the Catholic Students for Peace and Justice.
According to the 2005 Capital Crimes report issued by Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro, 20 inmates were executed in the state and 19 died in prison during the past 25 years. Another 54 inmates originally slated for death had their sentences vacated, reduced to life in prison or commuted by the governor.
The Hartley students said they hope their staging of Dead Man Walking prompts the sort of reaction that greeted a production at St. Ignatius High School in Cleveland last year.
Social-studies teacher Tim Evans said the play, as well as a discussion with Prejean at St. Ignatius, prompted emotional reactions and discussions that lingered throughout the school year.
croduta@dispatch.com
Teen actors at Hartley tackle weighty issues in ‘Dead Man Walking’
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
Charlie Roduta
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
SHARI LEWIS | DISPATCH
Mia Bennett, left, stage manager, and Alex Reifeis, prop manager, read the script.
Before a rehearsal at the high school, cast and crew members of Dead Man Walking pause for a moment of prayer.
SHARI LEWIS | DISPATCH PHOTOS
Hartley senior Erica Shannon rehearses a prison scene as Sister Helen Prejean.
The tough and gritty Dead Man Walking should pose almost as big a challenge to the audience as to the Bishop Hartley High School students performing it.
‘‘The play is an emotional hurricane," said sophomore Cristin Day, 16, who plays a reporter in the death-penalty drama. ‘‘You can’t walk out of it without feeling something."
This week, the Roman Catholic high school on the East Side will become the first central Ohio school to perform the play since it was made available to high schools and colleges last year.
During the 2004-05 school year, actor and director Tim Robbins, who wrote the screenplay, allowed only Jesuit high schools and colleges, which emphasize social justice in Catholicism, to perform the play.
For 2005-06, all schools have been granted permission to stage the play.
The drama, based on the 1993 memoir of Sister Helen Prejean, reflects her experiences as a spiritual adviser to Death Row inmate Patrick Sonnier in 1982. Sonnier, convicted of killing two teenagers, was executed in the electric chair at Louisiana’s Angola State Prison.
The play’s title refers to the phrase called out when a Death Row prisoner is escorted to execution.
The Hartley cast and crew hope their production, opening Thursday, will prompt debate and discussion on the death penalty.
"The play doesn’t give an opinion," said senior Stephen Bennett, 18, who plays fictional Death Row inmate Matthew Poncelet. "It really makes you see both sides."
In the play, Poncelet, sentenced to die for the rape and murder of two teens, exchanges letters with Prejean, played by senior Erica Shannon.
As the execution date looms, the nun learns more about the prisoner and the families of his victims and gets an intimate look into the Death Row system.
The script for the high-school and college productions was adapted by Robbins from his screenplay for the 1995 film. The film was directed by Robbins and starred his partner, Susan Sarandon, who won an Oscar for her role as the nun, and Sean Penn as the convicted killer. Dead Man Walking was also made into an opera that has been performed in seven U.S. cities, including Cincinnati.
Director Judith Manley said the script Hartley is using has undergone slight changes to the language but doesn’t pull punches.
"It takes us to a place we don’t want to go," she said. "But we must go there. The play forces us to face the grim realities of the execution process. By emboding Sister Helen Prejean’s spiritual call to witness for both the victims of the crime and of the execution, our students and audience can transform some of the guilt that diminishes all of us."
Sister Maureen Fenlon, national director of the Dead Man Walking Theatre Project in Louisiana, said the play creates an intimacy with the characters that the movie does not.
"It’s not just the issue, but we’re dealing with the human story," said Fenlon, who is from New Orleans. "And the human story is not black and white."
As part of the project, schools performing the play are asked to study capital punishment in the classroom. At Hartley, students are talking about the issue in religion class and Manley’s English class. Government teachers might also include it in their classes, Manley said.
The idea behind the project is to create a national discussion about the death penalty, said Fenlon, who plans to watch Thursday’s performance and talk to students and staff.
"This is a life-and-death issue," she said. "The work of Sister Helen and the work of this play is trying to create discourse on a major issue that has not really been brought to the light of people’s attention."
The theater project is part of the Death Penalty Discourse Network, an organization dedicated to prompting discussion on capital punishment. The network has a nationwide campaign seeking a moratorium on executions.
The issue is gaining momentum.
Last year, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops launched a campaign calling for Congress and state legislatures to abolish the death penalty.
A Cleveland social-action group called Catholic Students for Peace and Justice has spent the past four years raising awareness about the death penalty. Before the four most recent executions at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility near Lucasville, the group has held prayerful protests.
On Monday, more than 200 Catholic students who are part of the group will stage a rally at the Statehouse to try to get lawmakers involved.
"It’s somewhat hypocritical to teach someone that killing someone is wrong when we’re killing someone ourselves," said Augie Pacetti, a theology teacher at Padua Franciscan High School in Parma, a Cleveland suburb, and one of the co-chairmen of the Catholic Students for Peace and Justice.
According to the 2005 Capital Crimes report issued by Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro, 20 inmates were executed in the state and 19 died in prison during the past 25 years. Another 54 inmates originally slated for death had their sentences vacated, reduced to life in prison or commuted by the governor.
The Hartley students said they hope their staging of Dead Man Walking prompts the sort of reaction that greeted a production at St. Ignatius High School in Cleveland last year.
Social-studies teacher Tim Evans said the play, as well as a discussion with Prejean at St. Ignatius, prompted emotional reactions and discussions that lingered throughout the school year.
croduta@dispatch.com
