The Anonymo/us Project: Description

The Anonymo/us Project serves to provide high school students with a space to share their voices and be heard by one another. The project culminates in a live multimedia production in the format of a student-led onstage show performed for the entire student body, following a year-long process to collect and synthesize important stories and real experiences that define high school life, relationship issues, and coming of age. While the show is highly entertaining and earns rave reviews from students, parents and administrators alike, it serves a broader mission to encourage openness, respect, and empathy within the student community. As such, it straddles the realms of entertainment, mental health support, comedy, education, student life, and theater. 

The show is developed from responses to an anonymous student survey. Topics range from personal experiences such as grappling with self-love, relating to parents and siblings at home, and romantic relationships to more community-wide issues such as academic pressure, technology in daily life, and social life at school.

The survey and show provide an opportunity for students to share the stories and thoughts that they have about themselves, their community, and their experience of growing up today. What makes this event so meaningful to a community is that the words are entirely written by students, making the script real and relatable. The anonymity of the submissions allows for an objectivity that promotes a level of listening that we rarely get to experience in our culture. 

Student project leaders create a script of monologues and scenes derived from student survey responses and cast 8-10 performers in an open call audition. The script continues to evolve as cast members bring their own perspectives and interpretations to the pieces. In addition to the scenes and monologues performed onstage, the Anonymo/us Project also tries to employ as many other talents from the community as possible, from original songs and dances to student films and visual art. No matter the medium, each performance piece is a reflection of the student survey responses. 

Today, so much of the process of growing up is taking place on screens, where young adults are understanding their peers through filters and clever captions more than through raw feeling and live connection. The Anonymo/us Project gives students a chance to share their authentic selves without fear of judgement and to listen to one another human-to-human. The goal is to employ creative, artistic expression to represent a community in a safe, engaging space in order to encourage active listening as well as greater feelings of empathy and inclusion.