NOTE FROM THE DIRECTOR
What Does it Cost to be Kind ?
Bullying . The act of intentionally treating another cruelly for no offense of their own , other than a perceived difference or , especially , a weakness in the victim .
It can be physical , emotional , mental and persecutory . It can be in person or , increasingly , in the online social media space . It can be one person picking on another , or it can be a crowd of people deciding someone is beneath them .
It can be a one-time event , or , more often , a pattern over months or even years . And its impact can be devastating .
Much attention has been given to school bullying , but bullying behavior can occur anywhere there are people — workplaces , universities , churches , families , even theaters — anywhere power struggles crop up .
Usually , the objects of bullying feel powerless to stop the behavior . They may even ask for help — and sometimes this works . But sometimes it does not . And people learn to be helpless . And learned helplessness leads to depression , social withdrawal , substance abuse and intense anger .
If we haven ’ t experienced it ourselves , we have certainly watched as others have been treated poorly .
And if we are honest , many of us could point to episodes where we were less than perfectly kind to another person .
Stephen King watched two young women in his high school get bullied again and again . Later , when asked to write a story from “ a girl ’ s perspective ,” he thought of them and , encouraged by his wife , built parts of their story into his first novel , Carrie .
He imagined a situation where a young person was persecuted at school in the most horrible of ways — not only insulted , but belittled and dehumanized on a daily basis . At home , she faced a different form of dysfunction — a mother who was living through her own trauma ,
Carrie : The Musical Theatrical Scenic Designs