Playing on a Human Level

“The basic concept is that we’re all human beings and that if people would remember that we all have our own hopes, dreams, passions, fears and desires--that if we could remember that about others--we would treat them better,” said playwright and teacher Bruce Gevirtzman, author of “The Center of the Universe,” a play for teenagers about the consequences of prejudice and intolerance.

Revolving around a recent high school graduate, a young woman with a promising future who is caught up in a random act of violence, Gevirtzman’s short drama will be presented in two special performances for the public by educational theater company Phantom Projects on Jan. 14 at the La Mirada Theatre.

Images of the Holocaust, slavery and other events are woven into the young woman’s story.

“My contention is that it wouldn’t have been possible to do these horrible things if we all understood that we are all human,” Gevirtzman said.

Until the school shooting at Columbine, Colo., last year, Phantom Projects’ most requested plays for middle and high schools were those that dramatized pro-abstinence, anti-drug and anti-alcohol messages.

But after the Colorado tragedy--”almost overnight,” said artistic director Steve Cisneros--the company began receiving requests from teachers and students for a school play with a strong message about youth violence.

The hard-hitting, teen-focused drama by Gevirtzman, who writes all of the 4-year-old company’s plays, is now touring schools in Los Angeles and Orange counties.

“In two weeks we were entirely booked,” Cisneros said. “We stretched to seven weeks what was supposed to be a four-week tour and had to turn down four schools.”

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Discussions about the play and its themes are held with the company and the audience after each performance, but Phantom Projects isn’t about preaching. It’s a theatrical form of peer activism. Gevirtzman, a teacher of American literature and composition at La Mirada High School for 27 years, is the exception; otherwise, actors and staff range in age from 14 to 22. Cisneros, who started the company as a 17-year-old high school graduate and former student of Gevirtzman, is 21.

“It hits you over the head, this whole program does,” said Cisneros. He hopes that the reality of the play “may even reverse some of the numbing that kids have these days, because of the things they see [in] video games and on TV. We’re hoping, especially by having young actors up there, that this will make it very real to them.

“We’re also going to talk about how each of the cast members has had to deal with these kinds of things, whether it be a violence issue or a racial issue. One of our actresses who is African American has a lot of stories; we have an actor who used to be a homophobic gang member. He’s going to talk about some of the things he’s gone through. Each of the actors brings to the format something that they’ve gone through.”

Phantom Projects’ shows are adaptations of original plays Gevirtzman uses as teaching tools and produces with his honors classes. Cisneros, who still respectfully calls his mentor and former teacher “Mr. Gevirtzman,” is “the boss” as far as rewrites go, Gevirtzman said. His own involvement with the company is an extension of his passion for theater and his commitment to making literature and writing meaningful in young people’s lives.

“You do it because it’s important,” he said.

BE THERE

“The Center of the Universe,” La Mirada Civic Theatre, 14900 La Mirada Blvd., La Mirada, Jan. 14, 10 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. $5-$7. (562) 902-0119, or https://www.phantomprojects.com/