Neuqua students' Monologue Show defies labels

Actors in Neuqua Valley High School's eighth annual Monologue Show don't really try to fit performances into neat, simple categories.

Sure, there's comedy. Plenty of skits spoof everything from ginger-phobia (fear of redheads) to "Twihards" ("Twilight" fans).

Other students dive into more painful, sometimes personal material. Drug use, depression and death are handled with thoughtful, mature language, the cast says.

Just don't label the show a product of "teen angst."

"So many of the pieces that the kids wrote this year are about labels," said Mike Rossi, the director and an English teacher at Neuqua. "They hate labels. It's like a diminishment of your complexity."

Rossi started the show eight years ago to give students a chance to share their own thoughts and voices - a challenging task at a school with more than 3,000 students. Only a few wrote and performed original pieces that year.

Now, with 65 students participating and three different casts, the show brings together a "total spectrum of different experiences," Rossi says. The show debuts Thursday, April 12, and continues Friday and Saturday, April 13 and 14, in the school's Black Box theater.

The show really brings together a diverse sampling of students at Neuqua eager to tell their stories and be heard, Rossi says.

Just don't label them jocks, nerds, wallflowers or even theater kids.

For the audience, Rossi says, students have two goals in minds.

"They hope that you see them as a multifaceted individual with art and poetry inside of them and that you can then speak to them that way," Rossi says.

The other is to promote conversations about sometimes uncomfortable subjects on teenagers' minds, from body image to sexuality.

"Those are topics that we generally don't have conversations about until something goes wrong," Rossi says.

He works with each student to revise scripts with an eye toward language. He wants them to connect with the audience. And meet "very clear, specific guidelines" set by school administrators.

"You have to make sure that if you have something important and significant to say, you use language that shows you're worth being listened to," Rossi says.

Still, "this is something that's not as censored as most shows," says Rosey Norton, a senior who wrote a parody of soap operas with senior Hannah Williams.

In the process of developing scripts, Norton says she's learned a bit more about comedy. She doesn't look to "random, inside jokes" anymore for inspiration.

"Humor is so much easier when you can connect," Norton says.

Now, her peers will approach her during the school day, singing a song from a skit Norton and Williams wrote a year ago.

Rachel Winter says she's had similar experiences. Winter, a senior who's performed in 15 theater shows at Neuqua, says most students remember her performances in the Monologue Show.

"The five minutes you have on stage at Monologue Show will change someone, and that's important," Winter says.

She will debut a piece on the seeing the world through the eyes of a young girl. The message for the audience?

"You're going to miss a lot if you don't stop and smell the roses, except not that cliché," Winter says.

The diversity of material - that you can't really categorize - always surprises Rossi.

"They've stunned me," Rossi says. "Every year, I'm stunned at what they come up with."

If you go

What: Neuqua Valley High School's eighth annual Monologue Show

When:7 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, April 12 to 14

Where: Neuqua's Black Box theater, 2360 95th St., Naperville

Tickets: $5 at the door

Info: nvhs.ipsd.org