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(975) (549) (37) (12) (11) (5)That's the idea that prompted 25-year-old Jeremy Rubenstein of Manheim Township to write "Box Out the Bully," an interactive play that, he said, can help students make their schools safer.
"Bullying resonates with everybody," Rubenstein said Thursday as he and fellow actor John Patalano prepared to perform the show at Reidenbaugh Elementary School in Manheim Township. "It's a major problem in our schools today."
Rubenstein said his 40-minute show uses educational theater, role-playing and improvisational comedy to "teach kids how to empower themselves to stop bullying in their school."
"It's very interactive," Rubenstein said. "The kids learn while they're being entertained and enlightened."
Rubenstein, who taught drama at St. Leo the Great Catholic School and was an afterschool specialist at George Washington Elementary, said he was "asked by educators to come up with something" to deal with playground bullying. Tactics to deal with bullying, he said, "are not being taught" in schools.
"They're more concerned with test-taking and math and science, and they're not really talking about empathy," Rubenstein said.
In the show, Rubenstein plays a young man named Tom, and Patalano takes on several roles, including Uncle Jerry. The plot centers on Tom as he tries to deal with bullying and asks for — but doesn't always listen to — advice from Uncle Jerry.
Onstage is a locked trunk, in which, Tom believes, lies the secret to stopping bullying.
Though inanimate, the trunk serves as a third cast member, and Tom's efforts to open it include bullying tactics such as anger, ridicule and intimidation. All the while, Uncle Jerry points out to the students the errors of Tom's approach.
Throughout the show, the two discuss anti-bullying rules, such as telling an adult at school and at home, and remind students that reporting a bully is far different from tattling.
"You need to talk to someone if you want things to get better," Patalano said.
Other rules are for students not to bully one another and to include other students in activities in which they might feel left out.
The final rule is to help others who are being bullied: to tell the bully to "knock it off" and to be a friend to the child being bullied.
The locked box finally opens to reveal to the students that they're the ones with "the real power" to end bullying.
Rubenstein debuted "Box Out the Bully" in October at Lafayette Elementary School and Montessori Academy. He is working — through performances and his Web site www.boxoutbullying.com — to promote the show to more and more schools.
"It's very grass-roots right now," he said.
Reidenbaugh's principal, Mike Bromirski, said he wants to be sure his students understand what bullying is and how they can prevent it.
"At times, kids are scared to really stand up for someone who is getting bullied, or if they themselves are," he said.
"So we want to provide them with extra strategies to help them in dealing with bullying, and this show certainly gave them those strategies."
The lessons of Rubenstein's production are designed to carry over to the classroom as teachers first ask the children to review what they saw and discuss what bullying is, then follow up by explaining the expectations of the school and the consequences should bullying occur.
Bromirski also hopes the students will discuss it on the playground and on the bus rides to and from school.
"We want them to really start to talk through the situation," Bromirski said.
E-mail: lalexander@lnpnews.com
