TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) – There are conversations and then there are “necessary conversations.”
This weekend at the Straz Center for the Performing Arts, Deborah Bostock-Kelley, a 2017 Theatre Tampa Bay Jeff Norton Dream Grant recipient, is bringing A Necessary Conversation to the stage.
Bostock-Kelley’s original theater production addresses bullying, mental health and gun violence.
A Necessary Conversation, which is the brainchild of two teachers, will feature a cast comprised mostly of educators.
“When seven of the 13 people involved in this production are or were teachers, it only drives home the magnitude of our topic,” Bostock-Kelley said.
The show also features two performances, Nason’s 47 Reasons to Live and Bostock-Kelley’s 11:11, which originally debuted last year.
“When I wrote 47 REASONS TO LIVE almost 10 years ago, I put it away because something similar to the events in it happened AFTER I was writing it. So it sat in a drawer for years. I tweaked it a few years later, and a student of mine suggested that I send it out. Little did I know, but the world has gotten crazier, and the events in the play are more pertinent now than they were nearly a decade ago when I wrote I,” Nason said.
After Nason and Bostock-Kelley watched each other’s productions, the two realized the messages they were writing went perfectly together.
“My play deals with educators trying to figure out what to do with a very troubled student. It poses some very tough questions because that’s the tough world that we face as teachers, as parents, and as teens,” Nason said.
There will be a question and answer talkback session following the 7 p.m. show that will include Robert Allen, a father who recently lost his bullied son to suicide; Freddy Barton, Safe and Sound Hillsborough, an organization founded in 2013 to address violence in the family, school, or neighborhood; Wendy Malloy, Tampa volunteer lead, Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America; Emily Surak, 2017 Miss America’s Teen Miss Central Florida Outstanding Teen who volunteers with Crisis Center and is using her platform to discuss teen suicide prevention; The Crisis Center of Tampa Bay; Ashley Ryan Lord from Anti-Bullying Action Committee for Hillsborough County.
Both playwrights hope A Necessary Conversation will get the audience to reflect on the hundreds of school shootings plaguing the country since 2013 and start a discussion: what can we do to fix a broken child and stop violence before it happens.A Necessary Conversation will be presented at TECO Theatre January 20. Performances are 3pm and 7pm. Tickets for day show are $15 and evening show with talkback are $20.
For tickets and more information, visit www.life-amplified.ticketleap.com/anecessaryconversation012018.
Learn more about the play at https://www.facebook.com/pg/anecessaryconversation012018.