The Online Reflector

GTC Dramatic Dialogues performed at the university’s diversity lecture series titled “Strange Like Me” in the Ruth Lilly Performance Hall in the Christel Dehaan Fine Arts Performance Center on Sept. 25.

GTC Dramatic Dialogues actors discuss diversity at the “Strange Like Me” diversity lecture, which took place on Sept. 25 in the Ruth Lilly Performance hall in the Christel Dehaan Fine Arts Performance Center.

Some students were required to attend the event for a New Student Experience class, while others attended to acquire LP-credit. Regardless of their reason for being there, the students were not ready for what happened next.
A man walked onto stage and the show began. The man, an actor, started to shout out slanderous remarks against every race. He took stabs at gender and did not hold back, spewing vulgar language about the room.
At first, many students did not know how to react. Some laughed uncomfortably; others, uncontrollably. The rest looked as if they were not amused by the actor’s humor.
Throughout his act, the man walked back and forth past a white board, making random marks on the board. At the end of his act, he drew one horizontal line through the middle of the marks that spelled out his one-word message: Hate.
As he walked off stage, another man with a microphone came forward and began to explain to students what had just happened. He explained that the man was an actor who was in fact trying to get a rise out of the spectators. He then opened the floor to students and let them react to the act, jogging around the room to pass the mic and calling for students in the balconies to shout their feelings.
“I liked how they got students to interact. But some kids took it way too seriously,” said freshman psychology major Zach Spain.
The rest of the night involved two more acts, adding more actors and more gender, race and sexuality jokes. Students reacted in outrage, and the actors did not miss a beat, answering in perfect defense of their actions and remarks.
“We feel it’s most efficient when students start engaging with each other,” said GTC Dramatic Dialogues frontman Michael Agnew.
The group has been around for 18 years. They acquired their performance style when Agnew was introduced to a form of theatre called the “Theatre of the Oppressed.”
“In 90 minutes we’re not going to change what people believe,” Agnew said. “But we can get people to question what they think they believe.”