Alumni Experiences - Mark Blane

Recently, I had an opportunity to catch up with Syracuse alum Mark Blane.  He talked a little bit about his new play and the inspiration behind it. 

Mark has been working on The Rock and the Ripe for about three years.  “I didn’t know I was working on it for three years because it’s been something that’s been developing in my mind for a while” he said.  He talked about how during his junior year at SU he took a course called Queer Kids, Straight Schools.  It was a queer sexuality class, and he ended up doing a lot of research in the Syracuse school district by going into schools and talking to teachers.  Mark explained: “I was learning a lot about gay/straight alliances and how certain teachers perceived students who were not traditionally masculine or feminine. This was really eye opening because I was learning about why I was bullied by interviewing all these people.  It was just about kids being misunderstood.”

During that time, there was a rapidly increasing suicide rate in the U.S.  There were 10-15 kids that committed suicide across the country, including Tyler Clementi from Rutgers University.  This happened because they were being bullied, taunted, or harassed for being gay or being perceived to be gay. The really interesting thing about bullying is that kids are being bullied for something they might not be.  Because the subject was such a taboo one, being called gay was the worst thing these kids could imagine. Sadly, they ended up taking their own lives. 

After graduation in 2011, Mark moved to London.  There he continued to research and write about the lives and struggles of victims of bullying.  “I started to write down my stories about myself in middle school and high school,” Mark said.  “I wrote down what had happened to me and a lot of these things were things that I had forgotten even happened because I suppressed them. I went to Syracuse after high school, and I was able to just forget all these things that happened because Syracuse is a pretty liberal place. I didn’t have to worry about expressing myself. I wasn’t going to get taunted walking across campus like I was walking down the hallway in my high school in Indiana.”
Mark decided to turn these stories into a play in October 2011: “So I decided to write this play and kind of use the stories of these kids and give them a voice so people could learn to move forward.  People find it uncomfortable, and my thing about it is that I think if we don’t’ talk about it how can we learn from it?  How can we make it better?”  

While working on The Rock and the Ripe, Mark has became somewhat of an activist.  He traveled across the country to talk to teachers and families of victims of bullying.  He would also called reporters and journalists that covered the stories in various cities.  “Some reporters were getting hate mail because people don’t even want them reporting on a kid dying for the fact that he was gay,” Mark said.  “A child has died, but people actually are so close minded that they don’t even want to recognize the tragedy.  There are so many stories that I have personally investigated; I wouldn’t say they inspired it, but are where most of my material came from for the play.”

Mark wants people to know that the play tackles issues not just about sexuality, but about race and class as well.  It’s set in a waiting room outside of a principal’s office.  Several kids are waiting to see the principal, and there’s a boy who enters at the beginning.  He’s really, really upset, and the other kids seem to have been there a little bit longer than him.  They’re all waiting, and slowly you begin to figure out what happened to each kid.  

The setting of the play is particularly significant for Mark.  He explains, “I was punished as a teenager for seeking help when I was being harassed.  I would go ask for help, and I was being hurt more by the teachers and administrators because they wouldn’t take my cries seriously.  It was just so strange because things would be turned back on me because even though I was pretty quiet and a good kid in school, they would think that I was trying to skip out on class, even though I was getting great grades.”

The Rock and the Ripe runs from June 7-17, 2012 at Teatro Luna, 3914 N. Clark St.  To purchase tickets, visit http://www.therockandtheripe.com/


There are 6 shows this weekend. Thursday-Sunday at 8pm, and Saturday at 2pm and Sunday at 3pm. Adult Tickets are $15 and the Book is $12. Just use the code "OrangePride" at the door before the show, and get your ticket and the book for $20.