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02/21/2018 07:00 AMOn Feb. 8, the teenage cast of Jill Nesi’s group Stand Up and Speak Out brought Her Song, the anti-bullying musical, to The Kate for Old Saybrook Middle School students. While the performance was clearly engaging to the middle school students, the interactive discussion that followed between cast and audience was possibly even more enlightening—which is part of the plan.
Four-time Emmy nominee Producer/Songwriter Nesi says of her musical Her Song that it is “about the lasting impact that bullying and mean behavior can have on children. The showcase version [presented at The Kate] addresses the lasting effects that exclusion and negativity can have, and informs kids about ways in which they can stand up and speak out together.”
Students and parents watched cast members voice the thoughts of a bullied teen and of the teens who see a young teen as different, and act out in song a constructive confrontation between the bully and the bullied teen. In the final song, the cast in song stresses the importance of empathy and of speaking out as a way to combat bullying and its adverse effects on children and teens.
In one song, the bullied teen confronts the supposed friend who had bullied her, asking her why she acted that way. The bully simply said because she felt like it. Then the bullied teen sings “I’ll never give up on me.” The showcase closes with the cast singing the title song “Stand Up and Speak Out” while they display signs with words like “Show Empathy,” and “Stay Strong.”
During the question-and-answer session that followed, this question was asked: “Have any of you ever experienced bullying?” Each of the 10 cast members raised their hands—and then several shared their stories.
One young man in the cast said, “I used to be really overweight—60 pounds overweight. I would bully other kids because I was being bullied. My friends, family, peers, helped me to lose the weight. I’m a lot happier now.”
A young woman said, “I was bullied by someone who I thought was a friend. I finally went to my guidance counselor, but it took a long time. I don’t want anyone to [face what I did].”
“I was cyber-bullied this last fall. Someone wrote something bad about me, shared it around on Instagram—[it] went to the principal,” said Old Saybrook High School student Olivia Gaidry. “The technology we have is great, but be careful. By talking to a teacher, I was able to get past it.”
Another young woman said her sister was bullied, and she decided to confront the bully to protect her sister.
“It wouldn’t have stopped if I had really just yelled at her. [Instead] I talked to her about what she was doing,” she said, noting that the bullying did stop.
Then an adult in the audience, Kevin Garrity, decided spontaneously to share his personal experience with the audience, too.
“When I was growing up, I wasn’t smart, I was too slow, I was always being picked on, so I started accepting the things that were said about me—and then I became a bully,” Garrity said.
After high school, he attended Bates College. He said getting into Bates proved to him that he was smart, but unfortunately that was not enough to protect him from being on the receiving end of bullying and teasing behaviors.
“I played football in college, but I had ADD and I couldn’t remember my plays and the guys I played with teased me,” said Garrity.
Garrity said that he ended up going on to Columbia University for an MBA—more proof that he was in fact smart, and met his wife—but he still remembers and feels the impact that the bullying of his youth had on him. He admitted to the audience that day that to defend himself against the bullying behavior of others, he lashed out and became a bully himself, a reaction that is typical according to experts.
“When I see this play, I’m really moved. I have to identify that I was a bully and that I can change. I don’t like being a bully; I don’t like bullies. It’s up to each one of you guys to take this message [to be kind, to stand up, and speak out] back with you so you can be the best that you can be,” he continued.
To extend the message of Her Song, school staff and administrators received an enrichment guide to help facilitate discussions with students about issues raised by the Her Song performance. The guide was written by students from the Central Connecticut State University Counseling Program with support from Assistant Professor of Counselor Education and Family Therapy Dr. Margaret Donohue.