Competing for the first time, this school year’s play, “Girls Like That”, is a drama focusing on the issue of cyberbullying. According to actress and junior Sarah Biette, the play written by Evan Placey, focuses on cyberbullying among a group of private school girls. The play consists of seven girls: Scarlett, the victim, and six other girls who react to her naked photo on social media

“It’s about this group of girls that all went to the same school for their entire life, and then there is a naked picture released of one of the girls. It’s kind of just about their reactions to it and society’s reaction to it in a way, and the different things that happen when teenage girls are put into situations like that,” Biette said.

Actress and senior Madelaine Withers plays the role of the victim in the play, Scarlett. Withers said, “The show brings to light how teenage girls tend to treat each other; how they can be very cruel about comparing themselves to each other. It’s just kind of making other girls look bad so they can feel better about themselves. It addresses how girls treat each other in society and it also kind of addresses a bit of cyberbullying.”

The cast members started rehearsing the play in July and will continue until they perform for the first time at the Indianapolis Theatre Fringe Festival near the end of August. They will then practice again before competing at other events such as the Metropolitan Interscholastic Conference (MIC) festival, the regional conference and, if they qualify, the state conference.

In order to work with the script Jim Peterson, Director of Theatre and Film, said he had to contact the publisher for the playwright who wrote the script of the play. Several weeks later, Peterson got the playwright’s permission to make edits, but he had specific limitations of what he could and could not change.

“It’s interesting because if you look at the script, it’s written as a poem. The entire script is a poem. It’s done in a very intelligent, meaningful and surprising way. It’s really well done; it’s not cliché. That was the one thing I wanted to avoid with this subject matter, so that’s one of the best things about it. It was written so cleverly that it was really engaging,” Peterson said.

“It’s a pretty blatant message against cyberbullying. One of them is the victim of cyberbullying. You kind of see how it happens, and it’s kind of weird because you kind of feel like, ‘Oh this could happen and this is not a bad thing,’ and then you see (the girls) as, ‘Wait a minute. This is really really bad.’ It kind of takes you on this journey. I got sucked into it with this whole idea of, ‘Oh I can see where this is coming from,” Peterson said.

Withers didn’t know what to expect when she first read through the script; She never been bullied before.

“At first I was kind of like, ‘I don’t know how I’m going to tackle this, because I’ve never been targeted in that way. But during our read through, once you kind of get into the feel of it, of girls calling you names and insulting you, it helps to get you into the character. It was hard going over (the script) the first time, but the lines themselves provide you with what you need to be doing,” Withers said.

Withers and Biette said the script is very relatable because there is many moments in the script where they have heard someone say something similar in their lives.

“It’s not fake. It’s a very real script which I think helps people relate to it a lot. I think it’s going to be a great experience for everybody involved and everybody seeing it because it looks at things from an inside perspective and an outside perspective,” said Biette,

“It gives a lot of different viewpoints that I think people sometimes don’t realize that they are on that side of the situation. I think that it conveys an important message that we hear a lot, but it talks about it in a more in depth way than a lot of times we go into it. It talks about it in a more mature way because it’s treating it like an important issue.”

Editor’s Note: This article previously contained a timeline graphic that highlighted the productions that have been performed at the Civic Theatre; however, it was removed upon review since the ‘Girls Like That’ production was not related to the Civic Theatre.