The term “student body” tends to evoke images of pep rallies, sporting events and good-natured collegiate camaraderie.
But in the context of Frank Winters’ play by the same name, which local theater company 225 Theatre Collective will perform in the fall, the words stand for something much graver. Student Body represents the individual bodies of victims and aggressors, and the collective body of students in which the tumultuous aftermath of sexual assault unfolds.
This one-act play, which will run at LSU’s Union Theatre from Aug. 26-28, examines the fractious scourge of sexual assault on college campuses.
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But after sitting down with the 10-member cast, what really strikes me is how remarkably little information about the play is available beyond the basic description. Originally produced as an Off Broadway show in the mid-2010s, Student Body has since been kept somewhat under wraps.
“It is really just 10 people locked in a room having an argument for about an hour about this particular issue,” cast member Kalli Champagne tells me during our June interview.
This was about as much plot as any cast member would betray, and throughout the conversation it became evident that they—and everyone else who’s ever executed this show—keep it that way for good reason.
“It feels like this (play) is a teaching tool,” Champagne continues. “Some people have gone a very long time not knowing that what happened to them was assault, and was wrong, and I’m really hoping that, if anything, this is a teaching tool (that) can shine a light on this issue.”
Champagne’s words touch on one of Student Body’s key themes: the oppressive insistence on silence that often plagues survivors of these crimes, whether it comes from family, peers or—especially in this play—college administrations.
But the cast members say the play explores much more than just that. It plumbs all the murky gray areas that swirl around instances of sexual assault and “hold(s) a mirror up to society,” according to cast member Jordan Hebert.
“The fact that we’re bringing awareness to it at LSU,” adds cast member and LSU junior Alyssa Haddox, “especially with everything that happens here, is really important.”
Though the show is about college students, the local cast ranges in age from 17 to 30, including some current and former LSU students. They all agree the location of the performance—and the audience they hope will be drawn there—are integral to staging this production.
“Putting on this production makes me feel a little more comfortable here (at LSU),” Haddox adds. “Hopefully it allows other people to feel comfortable.” But by the same token, she says she hopes the play will “make it uncomfortable for everybody” by forcing people to look head-on at something many prefer to ignore.
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The cast says their passion for this production draws just as much from the real world it speaks to as the fictional world it creates. As Hebert says, that fictional world is a mirror that forces a lens on the ugly parts of reality that some try to brush out of sight.
So, if you’d like to learn more about the play and all the unseemly mechanics of the world it depicts, you’re welcome to do your own research—but you won’t find much. To see all its dark nooks and crannies illuminated, you’ll just have to see Student Body for yourself.
This article was originally published in the August 2022 issue of 225 magazine.