before "How a Month..."

So the process that my friend, Kelsey, took with the high school kids is what interested me even more than the play. In fact, that was what the point of even writing the play was for Kelsey. Her mom and I were joking about getting Kelsey to write sequels and what not, but it wouldn't matter to Kelsey right now because the process would not be there.

The four lead girls in the play had to follow a lot of rules to survive with limited options in order for their parents to pay for their trip. Kelsey challenged the cast and crew with some of those same rules. Three outfits to wear at school for the entire month. No makeup or shaving. No facebook. The point wasn't to follow every rule, but to consider why we do some of the things we do. Some guys didn't even notice that the girls were not wearing makeup and thought they looked just as beautiful. "You mean we are just putting on makeup for ourselves?" Exactly (maybe not all the time, but you get the idea).

Kelsey also did activities related to community. One particularly interesting activity was dividing up everyone into certain groups, each being a neighborhood of a particular social class. They each had to make their communities work no matter how much money they had. The upper class groups didn't end up helping the lower class groups. Why? Was it in the rules? No. That's just what society tells you as its unwritten rule. Kelsey never made that rule in the activity.

She also challenged their comfort zones. Each person had to meet someone new and find out more about them. In fact, the cast and crew bios were not about themselves, but some of the people they met during the month. They also volunteered at various places. Some worked on a farm, some at a homeless shelter or soup kitchen-type place.

Strangely enough, even more experiences of the cast and crew in real life mirrored the play. One girl broke up with her boyfriend because he didn't like how she had changed. But as humans, we should all strive to get out of our comfort zones and become better. That's why I applaud Kelsey and that's why the process interested me so much.

Also, take a look at the article written by the Grand Rapids Press for this play.