JOHN ADAMS MS A popular teenager by the name of Johnny is drinking heavily at a high school party when he grabs his car keys and decides it’s time to bounce.
Against her instincts, Suzie agrees to go along with her boyfriend after initially resisting his offer.“Come with me or you can forget about being my girlfriend,” Johnny warns Suzie.
Not surprisingly, the young couple lands in trouble as Johnny’s car gets stuck on a train track. A train fast approaches, and while Johnny is able to get out of the car, Suzie is trapped inside — her dress stuck in the passenger door. Fade to black.
It may sound like the typical fictional tale taught to students on the dangers of drinking and driving, but the story of Suzie and Johnny is true and one that hits close to home.
Taking real-life stories from members of the John Adams Middle School community, the eighth grade drama class today will act out the vices of substance abuse and the emotional and physical damages it might cause, in a play entitled “Driving through the decades.”
The approximately 40-minute play tells five different true stories of substance abuse that have been set in five different decades, sending the message that though fashion and music might change, teenagers will always have the same tough decisions to make in life — like avoiding a car with a drunken driver.
All the names of the characters have been changed to protect the identities of the people from whom the story was based.
In an age where teen idols like Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton are hardly acting as role models, running into the law for driving under the influence, “Driving Through the Decades” might just be what young impressionable middle school students need.
It is in the eighth grade when students are at risk of getting into cars with teenage drivers who are drunk, said drama teacher and director Marcia McCarthy, citing several studies.
The script for “Driving Through the Decades” was drafted two years ago by McCarthy and her former eighth grade drama students after the school’s drama program received a $500 grant from Safe Moves, a non-profit organization aimed at teaching traffic safety. Some of those eighth grade students are old enough to drive today.
“We knew we had to get a serious message across,” McCarthy said.
In anticipation of the performances today, the approximately 31 eighth graders did a dress rehearsal on Tuesday afternoon, working out any kinks that need to be corrected before the unveiling.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on May 30, 2007. Read the original PDF.