XONR8 Theatre.
XONR8 as a whole, was our first official project of the year in my opinion. XONR8 Theatre is the second part in the project, the first half being our XONR8 presentations to student lawyers/lawyers. The first half was actually working on a case for someone that was asking for exoneration and us, the students, deciding whether the client was guilty or whether to move on with the case or not. XONR8 Theatre, on the other hand, was in groups of 3-4 students we had the huge task of creating and performing great plays on crime, punishment, and innocence. Our plays would be verbatim, meaning that it’d use the actual words that came from your specialist. We would accumulate all of the information through a ~1 hour interview that would be set up in person, by phone, or through a series of emails. Each script would be written by each group with help from both Dr. P and Mackenzie, if needed. This project was very meaningful and special because not only would be using many stories never told before, but our goal was to open the eyes of the audience to see what happens all around us and how it is possible for there to be flaws in us, as well as our criminal justice system.
Final Script.
Interview Transcript.
Play Presentation.
Reflection.
This project was very different and very big, at time I thought it’d be way too much for a team of teenagers to even be able to comprehend everything fully. In the end this is all about stories coming out as well as trying to release wrongfully convicted victims. As a whole is all about these people and their story, their life, it’s not something to play with or just learn about. It really opened my eyes to “the real world”, I now see things a lot differently in response to certain things that the government does as well as what I do as an individual. The moment that really made me realize this was only until I physically saw Justin Brook sitting there looking at our plays, only then did I really see that things like these do happen all around us and we don’t even know it. It makes me extremely happy and proud to see that there's people with hearts like everyone in the CIP, the spend their time doing their best to exonerate any innocent human in jail and knowing that we raised the smallest bit of awareness is a huge thing for me. I think that was I’m most proud of in myself is including everyone in my group equally and really giving justice to what forensic specialist, David Garber, said. I loved being able to go to the Chula Vista Police Department and getting to experience so much. We got to go through every room and recreate blood spatter, fingerprint, tire tracks, and even walk through the jail. This project not only gave me chance to see things differently and experience many new things, but it also taught me a lot about life and people. Us as humans will always care, no matter what, and even though some care more than others there's always that sense that there's care everywhere. Life,as well, is something we take for granted, there are so many cases sent into the CIP, from real people that want to live and would give anything to be out of prison/jail, even to do simple everyday things. I really appreciated the fact that these people let us into their life and gave us the chance to share their story. I think all in all this project was full of contribution from every single person on our team and anyone that came in contact with us. Personally, I think I contributed by really making sure I did everything that I needed to do and really trying to do more in making our play as good as could be, this may be a problem in some cases but in XONR8 Theatre I think it worked out for the best. Overall, I really enjoyed this project and hope that the CIP get further on in their quest to free the wrongfully convicted.