SLUT: The Play

I'm going to combine this review with the expanded edition, Amazon sells them both, I bought the SLUT script before I realized that it was also available bound into the volume subtitled, "A Play and Guidebook for Combating Sexism and Sexual Violence". The play opened in NYC in August 2013 and then went on tour nationally. Realizing that a lot of HS teachers might be pressured by their kids to stage it, teachers who might only think of the word "triggering" as something happening when you pull a piece of cast metal, the author/compilers have included a lot of helpful hints about producing their script effectively AND safely. Staging notes are included with the script: how and when to move the actors. Photos of the LA production, also included.The action revolves around five HS underclasswomen (Juniors on down), members of a dance team--- one of whom is sexually attacked in the back of a cab by a group of HS schoolboys she thought were her friends. This occurs during the time frame of the play (scene is NOT shown but described vividly, onstage, to the Assistant DA and to the survivor's friends). The staging is minimal, laptops/tablets are used, video calls are projected on a backdrop, as are rows of dressing-room lockers and a drugstore aisle. So it's high-tech, but pretty simple for this day-and-age state of theatre technology. The intent is to explore the reactions of the kids to what is happening.The Guidebook (with the script together, in one book) is a very rich find -- contains extended production notes, teachers' guides for discussion questions (watching the play will be VERY profoundly disturbing for some), and contains essays by the authors, feminist workers in the women's rights fields, and one first-person essay by a male student survivor who was the first to testify before the US Senate on relationship violence.I'd recommend this for anyone who works with this age group, and younger, even if all one does is put it into his/her desk drawer and never direct a minute of it on a stage. It is an invaluable resource.

I should have taken the title more seriously, it is just the play, and nothing more. While the play is great, I really wanted some discussion so because of that I am very disappointed.