Skits Entertain as They Teach Tolerance

Stimples love to shriek. Blimbers think they are weird. Megmazoids take their dislike for the imaginary creatures a step further, silencing the Stimples and forcing them to be like everyone else.

Then, the skit goes, a young Stimple named Gilbert discovers that strange sounds actually frighten away his oppressors.

“Quick, quick, make a noise!” Gilbert--played by Eldon Cline--exhorts dozens of St. Thomas the Apostle students, who eagerly join him in chasing away the abusers and saving the day.

For the fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders at the Catholic school in Koreatown, watching the Dr. Seuss-like skit and half a dozen others was a cool way to spend a Wednesday afternoon. Their teachers hope for a more lasting effect--one that will curb schoolyard taunts and bullying.

“We have a real duty to educate our students as to tolerance,” Principal Vince O’Donoghue said.

It is a sentiment shared by educators at close to 100 public and private schools from San Francisco to San Bernardino who, in the wake of state and local mandates to deal with diversity, have asked the actors of Fringe Benefits to perform for their students this school year.

The anthology of skits, dubbed “Cootie Shots,” which is often advertised by word of mouth, costs $400 to $600, although grants from organizations, including the Liberty Hill Foundation, allow for 20 free performances this fall, organizers said.

However, the show that cast members describe as a theatrical vaccination against all forms of bigotry has not been embraced by everyone.

A Cypress Park elementary school that presented the Stimples parable in June drew complaints from a dozen angry parents when it was presented during an annual gay and lesbian awareness assembly. (Recognition of different groups is required by the Los Angeles Unified School District, school officials say).

About 50 of the 250 St. Thomas students who were invited to the show Wednesday were kept by their parents from seeing it, O’Donoghue said. That number is on par with other programs and trips they seek parental permission for, he said.

Although some people have expressed concerns that the show promotes homosexuality, Fringe Benefits founder Norma Bowles said such fears are unfounded.

Bowles’ 8-year-old educational theater company has focused on older students and homophobia in the past, but the performances then and now are not about sex education, she and cast members said.

“Our only purpose is to dispel destructive stereotypes,” Bowles said. “ ‘Cootie Shots’ promotes understanding and tolerance of diversity and nothing else.”

The anti-bias theme of this year’s $40,000 program was broadened and aimed at younger children because all forms of prejudice are related and start at an early age, Bowles said.

“There is so much more interest and reception for this show than there was for our past shows, largely because it deals with all forms of bigotry,” she added.

“It’s a very nonthreatening way to look at these issues,” especially gay-bashing, said Seth Cutler, coordinator and lead teacher at Loreto Street School in Cypress Park, which, despite previous parental protests, plans to bring the show to its older elementary students in December.

The 29 skits are the creation of 200 people, Bowles said, including professional writers and composers and individuals such as members of one family in Elysian Valley, who have experienced prejudice because one of them is gay.

Schools decide which half-dozen or so skits among the batch they want shown to the kids.

“It may help some kids have a better understanding of how painful it is for the person they are making fun of,” said one 13-year-old girl. For three years, she endured almost daily taunts and name-calling at her Catholic grade school because of her brother’s sexual orientation.

The performances have also helped cast members, said Stephen Allman, 39, who plays the father in the skit about the family with the gay member. The skit was performed for St. Thomas students.

“When I look at him [the son], I see myself as a young boy. No one stood up for me,” said Allman, who is gay. “It’s therapeutic.”

Fellow cast member Steven Christopher Ruiz agreed. “If I can only reach one person to tell them that it’s OK to be who he or she is, that it’s OK to be different, then it’s worth it,” said Ruiz, 24, who has performed with the company since Bowles recruited him from a Hollywood shelter at age 17.

“It is important to make an impact on them when they are young,” said Mercy Vasquez, 27, who teaches at South Coast Repertory in Costa Mesa.

Reaching children early is key to keeping them from discriminating later, and schools have become increasingly active in teaching young students to respect different races, ethnicities and religions, psychologists and anti-bias specialists say.

But there is reluctance to deal with homophobia in the early grades because of discomfort over any discussions linked to sex and the fear of parental protests, they add.

That leaves youngsters with the impression that it is OK to abuse peers who do not conform to how they feel boys and girls should act, attacks that extend to those children’s relatives and friends, said Karen Franklin, a forensic psychologist in El Cerrito, near Berkeley.

Equally painful is when teachers choose not to get involved, said Sol Kelley-Jones, a seventh-grader in Madison, Wis., whose speech to Wisconsin legislators comparing her lesbian mothers’ inability to marry to experiences of a freed slave in pre-abolition America is incorporated into one of the skits.

“Silence is taking a stance. It’s hurting real people, real families,” she said.

Bowles encouraged the St. Thomas students to get involved if they see someone being put down for whatever reason. “Respect each other for who you are,” she said.

At least one-fifth grader took the message to heart.

“We should accept people,” said Michelle Segura, 9. “What’s inside is what counts.”