Hi everyone,
For some background I am the stage manager at my small school of about 700 students ages 10-18. (Everyone knows each other.)
Our theater company is about 150 students. Recently, I've run into a really weird issue.
Both theater teachers/directors refuse to deal with bullying and harmful gossip!
Our big show last fall ended up having three people quit right before/during shows because of gossip about SA (I tried to shut it down, but people talked about it outside of theater and couldn't believe it when it turned out to be a lie), plus general bullying. I've tried going to both teachers before but one usually takes sides (intentionally or not idk) and the other stays as uninvolved as possible. This has created a really bad community for a bunch of hormonal teenagers and since a lot of people have started coming to me with relationship issues I'm at a loss. I have a high position due to me being VP of our troupe but no matter how much I try to separate people, stop rumors, or talk to the people involved it just gets worse. I know this is fixable because whenever our uninvolved directors wife comes over from her school no one has any drama. As a student myself I don't have the same presence or authority she does so as I said previously, I'm a bit at a loss right now.
Does anyone have any tips? This is getting out of hand.
Thank you for any advice you might have :-).
