With Steubenville case as basis, CMU play aims to examine 'rape culture'

[niyad]

With Steubenville case as basis, CMU play aims to examine 'rape culture'

http://www.post-gazette.com/image/2015/01/09/ca0,0,2600,1733/1steubenville0114.jpg
Carnegie Mellon University graduate students Joey Sarno, Molley Griggs, director Eleanor Bishop and Dan Sakamoto are preparing a new theatrical work based on trial transcripts, interviews and media and social media responses to the 2012 Steubenville rape case.

During her first trip to the United States, New Zealander Eleanor Bishop read an article about the 2012 rape case involving high school students in Steubenville, Ohio.
She was “horrified and moved and fascinated,” and it wasn’t long before she was channeling her feelings toward a theatrical work. “I was filled with a kind of curious, furious anger about it — I wanted to find out what had happened and why,” said Ms. Bishop, 28, a self-described “feminist artist who creates documentary theater.”

Now in her second of three years in the Carnegie Mellon graduate directing program as a John Wells Fellow and Fulbright Scholar, she was on her way to CMU the day she began her most recent theatrical journey.

Ms. Bishop is at work on “Steubenville,” based on transcripts and original writing mingled with media, social media and other responses to the highly publicized case of a West Virginia high school girl who was assaulted while passed out at an alcohol-fueled party. Two high school football players — who bragged about the assault on social media — were convicted of rape of a minor and three adults were indicted for obstructing the investigation in a ongoing case.

With the “Steubenville” play in mind, American Theatre Magazine last month put Ms. Bishop on its list of “artists and companies who put social, political and civic causes at the forefront of their work.” Rehearsals begin Friday, Ms. Bishop said by phone from New York, where she also has been working with the experimental theater collective The Wooster Group.

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http://www.post-gazette.com/ae/theater-dance/2015/01/14/Play-to-explore-motivations-in-Steubenville-teens-rape-case/stories/201501140005