Play shows impact of eating disorders

An award-winning play about body image and eating disorders will come to life on stage at the high school.

Tonight is the last opportunity for residents to see the Green River High School Theater's rendition of "Eat (It's not about food)" by Linda Daughtery. Tickets to the in the round play are $3 for students and seniors and $5 for general admission. The show starts at 6:30 p.m.

This play is quite different from other plays because the audience is on the stage with the actors, GRHS theater director Terrin Musbach said.

"The audience is on all sides. The audience will be sitting on the stage, in a square surrounding the actors and actresses," Musbach said. "It is a very intimate experience."

The subject of the play targets young adults, she said. However, research has shown children as young as kindergarten begin forming ideas about body image.

"Families and parents would be the best people to decide if their young children should attend," Musbach said.

Musbach bought this play when she was at the International Thespian Festival in June.

"On the bus ride home, myself and several students read the script, and we all felt that it was very relatable and worth producing." Musbach said. "Body image is a real issue in our society, and as a result, wonderful people end up with horrible self-perception."

The show deals with the themes of body image and eating disorders by presenting multiple characters that struggle in unique ways.The main story line follows Amy, a young girl that experiences anorexia nervosa.

"We see the fight that Amy and her family face as they work to overcome her poor body image," she said.

Since August, the students have been working hard to research and learn about eating disorders and body-image issues throughout the world.

"We have learned about obesity, starvation and everything in between," she said.

For this play, the students had different obstacles to face, than any other plays they had performed.

"I think the biggest challenge with the show is the need to face our own internal conflicts that we all have with body image and our relationships with food," she said.

The rehearsals were also different.

"In the rehearsal process, we discuss and research these issues daily. While these discussions help, I think that body image and negative relationships with food are deeply embedded in our culture, and my hope is to get the cast and crew, along with the audience, to begin to face these issues as individuals," she said. "Ultimately we have to seek healthy lifestyle changes and find love for self from within." 

One topic this play brings to light is how males can also have the same eating disorders.

"I think that a fallacy in our society is that eating disorders only affect girls," Musbach said. "This play does a wonderful job of exposing the male side of these issues as well, as male eating disorders are currently on a dramatic rise."

 

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