Theatre / Voices from the High School

Voices From the High School is a play that exposes the attitudes, feelings, and issues that high schoolers face.

The play is told in short skits with one-shot characters, interspersed with short anecdotes given by nameless characters. Each skit deals with a specific issue, from being the new kid to working to teen pregnancy.

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This play contains examples of:

• Badass Biker: Hank wants to be one.
• Big Eater: Freddy "couldn't live without ice cream."
• Buxom Beauty Standard:
  Charlie: What do you think of Annie Harrigan?
  Hank: Nice knockers.
  Charlie: Yeah.
• Calling the Old Man Out: Larry talks about doing this to his abusive father.
  Larry: Someday when he hits me. He's going to get a big surprise. You know. Cause I'm going to grow up and he's not. I mean I'm going to grow stronger and he's going to get weaker. That's just nature, you know. So he's bigger than me now but he won't always be. You know what I mean, Bobby? Know what I mean?
  Bobby: Yeah.
  Larry: Right. So some day when he beats me for no good reason. I mean just because that's the only way he can get off at life and what's driving him crazy... on that day I'm going to beat him. Right into the ground.

• Driven to Suicide: Jimmy. The reason is never given, but he gets better.

• Framing Device: The skits are all separated by short anecdotes by "Group Member."
• Headphones Equal Isolation: played for laughs. Two characters listening to music are having a conversation, but can't tell what each other is saying.

• Motor Mouth: "Ever try to follow a girl's conversation? If she's excited it's like chasing a paper in a windstorm; just when you think you got the point she's sixteen feet over your head and whirling in a spiral."

• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Jerry decides to imitate Shakespeare.
• Shout-Out: One character says, "I had a girlfriend that told me she thought all teachers should be like that character Kotter on TV."

• Take That!: Harry really dislikes Othello.
• Tastes Like Friendship: When Stephen and Sheila meet, he eventually persuades her to get ice cream with him.

• Totally Radical: Unfortunately the fate of this play as it ages.
• TV Teen: Played with. While a few skits portray the stereotypical teen, others go in depth and show realistic teenagers. The play is also popular with high school drama clubs.
• Understatement:
  [Roger enters with a giant Valentine.]
  Mary: That's for me?
  Roger: Just a little card.

• Yandere: Andrea
  Andrea: Yeah, I know. the jerk's waiting. So go. I haven't got a gun. Yet.

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