A group of Burnaby high school drama students has combined comedy, medical research and real-life overdose deaths to create a play they hope will get fellow teenagers talking wisely about ecstasy.
The Burnaby Mountain secondary school drama students say most teens won't listen if they are being preached to, so their play begins by handling the dark topic of ecstasy overdoses in a lighthearted way.
"Throughout all this absurdity, they are getting the truth. We give them facts and we hope they get educated," said Kieren Gadhia, one of the 24 students who wrote and stars in the play.
"It's a production by students, for students."
The play, called Russian Roulette, was performed 15 times in four Burnaby high schools before Christmas, and will be staged in three more Burnaby high schools next week.
The grand finale will be Wednesday at 7 p.m. at the Michael J. Fox Theatre in Burnaby, a free performance which the actors hope will attract many parents and their children.
Between late 2011 and early 2012, more than a dozen young people in B.C. and Alberta died of ecstasy overdoses, many due to the drug being laced with a lethal chemical called PMMA.
Last February, the B.C. Justice Ministry offered grant money for ideas about how to effectively warn young people about ecstasy.
The Burnaby RCMP and school district submitted a joint application, and believed the message would be better received coming from other young people.
Burnaby RCMP Cpl. Neil Roemer, head of the school liaison/ youth unit, said the unique play achieves what he was hoping it would: it provides accurate information about the risks of ecstasy to an age group that is consuming the drug.
"Having [the message] come from their peers, I think, will make the youth relate to it more," Roemer said. "They are going to make their own decisions as youth, ... and we just want them to eliminate this particular risk from their lives."
Burnaby Mountain secondary was selected to write, produce and stage the play under the direction of drama teacher Felicity Rudolph, who pitched the idea of taking the show on the road to other high schools in the district so many students could see it.
The performance is a 45-minute whirlwind of activity, opening with fast-paced dialogue between the actors about why they use ecstasy. "I'm bored." "I want to get slim." "My boyfriend just broke up with me."
It includes commercials that poke fun at the harms of the drug simply known as "E," through products like Rose-E tinted glasses and the drink Popularit-E. It also includes a game show called Risk-E during which the contestants can win prizes like an all-expense paid trip to the ER.
Suddenly the lights go out and the audience is jolted from absurdity to reality. The stage is empty except for the words, beamed from a projector: "Actual 911 call. Dec. 19, 2011."
The room is filled with the heartbreaking emergency call made by Abbotsford teenager Cheryl McCormack's friends the night she fatally overdosed while taking ecstasy at a slumber party.
The Burnaby students decided to include a large portion of her sad story in their play after reading a long Vancouver Sun feature in September about McCormack and a second young Abbotsford resident, Tyler Miller, who died within weeks of each other after taking PMMA-laced ecstasy.
McCormack was an athletic, intelligent high school student who was not a frequent ecstasy user, and the real 911 call is a powerful tool to get across the play's message, said Isaac Caverzan, a Grade 11 student.
"As soon as the audience is thinking, 'I'm enjoying the show' - boom! - the 911 call starts. We open them to reality, and then we hit them with reality," he said.
There is a question-and-answer period about ecstasy after each show. The actors once asked the audience who had used ecstasy, and only one girl put up her hand; they then asked who knew how to buy ecstasy, and nearly everyone put up a hand.
"The problem is the accessibility," said Caverzan, who has been offered ecstasy at parties. "It's a $5 pill, and that's what you pay for your life."
A portion of the $24,000 Justice Ministry grant went to the University College of the Fraser Valley to produce a pamphlet about ecstasy written specifically for teens, which is handed out at Russian Roulette performances and will soon be posted online, said the RCMP's Roemer.
The money will also be used to develop a short high school curriculum to help Burnaby teachers speak to students about ecstasy. Although the play wraps up next week, it is possible the concept could be used by other school districts in the future, Roemer added.
The poster for next Wednesday's free public performance says the play is suitable for children aged 12 and older. Rudolph, the drama teacher, said she hopes parents will bring their kids.
"Some parents get scared. They think you are better off to hide it. But if they see the show, [young people] aren't going to use ecstasy, we hope," she said.
"[The actors] talk the way teens talk, so the play is realistic and it is truthful."
For the last year, McCormack's mother and sister, who attended one of the Russian Roulette productions, have visited high schools in several cities, including Abbotsford, Delta, Hope, Chilliwack and Langley, along with the Abbotsford police, who produced an emotional video about the deaths of McCormack and Miller.
Gadhia, a Grade 11 student, has a friend who once took "a bad trip" on ecstasy, and said the intent of the play is to resonate with teens tinkering with the drug.
"I hope from watching it that they would stop their use," he said.
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