The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
Real-life drama
Play puts teenage drug use into perspective
Eric was a good kid. He had dreams of attending Harvard University. His younger sister looked up to him and he was on track to lead a well-rounded, fulfilling life.
Then he found out how much he liked getting high.
At least that’s what Jeremy Bilek who, through the Geauga Lyric Theater Guild, plays Eric in Cleveland-area playwright Greg Vovos’ drug-abuse drama “Complete and Total,” portrays in the play.
Thanks to Chardon Police Department patrolman Mike Shaw, who works as the Chardon Schools’ school resource officer — or SRO — several dozen other Northeast Ohio-area school resource officers got to see Eric’s story play out in hopes they might want to bring it to their own school districts.
Shaw said once he saw it featured at Chardon High School in January, he immediately recognized its worth as a tool to combat the ever-growing opioid painkiller and heroin problem that’s been plaguing cities, towns, villages and school districts across the country.
Shaw, as the regional representative for the Ohio School Resource Officers Association, hosted a meeting March 22 at Chardon Middle School featuring Vovos’ play in hopes his fellow school resource officers will see its value as an educational tool.
“It’s simple, but so realistic,” Shaw said of the play shortly before its introduction.
“It presents true-to-life scenarios and it really explores the process, the steps, of someone sinking into addiction with this stuff, which is just all too common today. That’s why I wanted to try to bring it to these different schools.”
Shaw said he hosts two
meetings a year as a regional representative for the OSROA and usually arranges for a speaker to present. But the play about Eric really hit home for him and he thought it might resonate with other SROs.
“This play really hits it on the head,” Shaw said. “It’s because it involves ‘normal kids,’ not some junkies on the street. And that’s the truth. This happens to football players who get prescribed pills for pain associated with a shoulder injury or something. Then they get hooked and the next thing you know, they’re straight-up injecting heroin. And that’s the truth. It happens in Chardon. It happens in Mentor. It happens pretty much everywhere.”
Play director Angela Miloro-Hansen, who works in the outreach department of the Geauga Lyric Theater
Guild, said she’s been met with some resistance by area school districts in approaching them about presenting the play at their schools.
“Either they would say ‘we don’t have that problem here,’ or just be completely silent,” she said about some of the responses the play has gotten from prospective hosts. “And that’s why I’m so grateful to the Chardon Schools. They’ve been so open and supportive.”
During the play, the audience is taken through the various stages of Eric’s ever-increasing addiction. At first, his sister, Madison (played by Sophie Guerinot) voices her disapproval of the fact that he’s drinking liquor out of his Gatorade bottle. Next, she discovers he and his mind (played by Jonathan Ward) are in agony over their use of prescription opiate pain killers,
which were stolen from a family member.
Before the audience knows it, Eric, his mind, his love interest, Hanna (played by Kaia Bulkoski) and Bobby the drug-fiend friend are all shooting heroin with needles and flushing their lives down the toilet.
Miloro-Hansen said the feedback she’s received about the play has been encouraging.
“The people who have seen it have been very appreciative,” she said. “It’s brought up a lot of dialogue and a lot of discussion.”
She said that even the cast, itself, which ranges in age from 15 to 18, has grown into discussing the issues the play presents.
“I’ve seen them grow more and more open to talking about the addiction issues and relating it to their own lives,” she said.
“I mean, everybody knows somebody — you know?”
Shaw said he hopes other school resource officers will see the value of the play and bring it to the schools they oversee.
“It’s such a simple thing,” he said of the play, itself. “It’s not a big production. But it’s really poignant and real. I think it’s true to life in how it portrays the path of addiction and how these kids can go down that path. It shows that process and the different steps the addiction takes. And I think it teaches some really valuable lessons.”
As far as the production, itself, goes, Miloro-Hansen said it’s booked through next school year. But anyone wishing to bring it to his/her school is encouraged to contact the Geauga Lyric Theater Guild via its website or by calling 440286-2255.