Modern Age Issue : Gay Relationships in College
Setting: High school hallway by the lockers and the Park
Characters :
Michael and Thomas: two young men who are in love with each other but face a situation in which they are judged heavily for not being “normal” and doing what is “right” despite gay marriage being legal in New York and supposedly accepted.
Phil- Anti gay supporter who harass’ Michael and Thomas in school because he saw them hold hands.
Amanda- The “hero” of the play because she stands up for both Michael and Thomas in front of the bully, Phil.
Costumes: Modern day school outfits. Phil is wearing a varsity jacket do depict the image of a “school jock” that bullies Michael and Thomas.
Act 1:
In the first scene, you will be able to get to know Thomas and Michael and their relationship with each other. They keep their relationship pretty low key and do not typically show affection in public. The first scene shows them in the park enjoying each others company. There is happy, pop music playing in the background.Phil also gets introduced in this scene as the jock who did not get into his top college choice and is now angry. Since he did not get in, he is angry and needs something to focus on to let his anger out and the first thing he sees when he walks into school is Thomas laying his head on Michael’s shoulder in the hallway by their locker. Suspenseful music is playing in the background so the crowd understands that drama is about to go down.
“Yo losers!”
Act 2:
The suspenseful music is completely shut off in this scene and it is pure silence. In the second scene, Phil approaches them and begins taunting them. He curses them out and says how stupid it is of them that they are “gay” and together. He says that they will never be normal after this and that their reputations are going to be ruined forever. You can clearly see that he is only saying these things because he is mad at his own life and needs something to say to make someone else’s life worse. Eventually, Michael has enough and steps in to protect himself and Thomas. In response, Phil pushes Thomas into the lockers and goes,
“What? You don’t have your little boyfriend to protect you?”
Act 3:
Amanda, the pretty girl who lives in a picket fence house with a perfect family, happens to be walking past their lockers when Thomas was pushed up against the locker.
“HEY! GET OFF OF HIM” she shouts.
The rest of the scene is spent of Amanda interrogating Phil and making him understand that this is NORMAL and no matter what goes on in his personal life, he should never treat people like this and walk all over them. Amanda goes on to tell him that no matter what is wrong in his personal life, he does not get to do this to regular people. If two people are happy, that is all that matters. Phil looks astounded that someone actually had the nerve to stand up to him and break his ego shell for good. Phil ends up apologizing to him and eventually ends up asking Amanda to spend time with him because he fell in love with a girl who told him straight up that his actions were unacceptable.
Overall Message:
The point of all of this is to understand that gay relationships and marriage are so common these days all over the world, especially in New York. Some people still fail to understand how you cannot call people out or be against the idea of it because it is no longer up for debate. There are thousands of kids everyday who get bullied in high school and everywhere because of this. This is supposed to show that it only takes one person to speak up to chance the opinion of someone else and help them.
Karina Karazhbey
