“ROLEPLAY,” a modern story of college life, seeks to spark conversation around difficult topics that are often swept under the rug.

Originally written by Tulane University students in 2019 and adapted by current LSU students, the play follows the myriad lives of university students as they navigate the complexities of college life and growing up. The play explores themes of love, sex, consent, addiction and identity.

Each character spends the play trying to overcome some internal battle. Elle, the narrator, struggles to cope with the memories of being sexually assaulted by her ex-girlfriend. Now in a happy and healthy relationship with Kayla, Elle is finally learning to speak up for herself.

DJ Flood, a freshman film and television major and the actor playing Elle, frequently finds it challenging at times to fully get into Elle’s troubled mindset since the character struggles with so much trauma.

“Especially on days when DJ’s having a rough day, and I have to come in and kind of have a rough day as Elle too. It can be alot emotionally, but at the same time rewarding.” Flood said.

Many college students today unfortunately share Elle’s bleak mindset. Discussions about intimacy and consent are often considered taboo, so people can feel too ashamed or afraid to speak up if they experience sexual abuse or assault.

Lhéaux Hulin, a senior physical theater major, feels there is a detrimental lack of education for young people on topics like consent and intimacy. He hopes that this play encourages audiences to have more casual conversations about the topics in order to destigmatize them.

“Sex education, especially queer sex education, is not taught,” Hulin said. “It’s scary to ask for boundaries. It’s scary to talk about them, because we act as a society like they don’t exist. Learning that casually mentioning the word ‘boundaries’ is ok, it actually produces a better life than I have previously had.”

“ROLEPLAY” also deals with themes of gender identity and sexual orientation. Hulin describes the cast and crew of this production as ambassadors for these causes and hopes to help the audience feel represented through his costuming. Hulin has made various patches for his pants, featuring the pride flag, lesbian flag and a “Black is Power” patch.

Aside from these themes, “ROLEPLAY” also highlights the very prevalent issue of alcohol abuse on college campuses. Sarah May Dages, a sophomore theater performance major and president of Tigers Against Sexual Assault, plays pre-med student Zoe. Behind her hyper-organized lifestyle and heavy homework load, Zoe struggles with alcoholism.

“She goes out pretty much every night, and she gets home at two, three in the morning after drinking an insane amount,” Dages said. “Then she gets up, somehow, at 7:30 in the morning and does it all over again. There’s something that sets her off and makes her do the things that she does, because by no means does she have to get blackout drunk every night, but it seems as though she does.”

The show is directed by Emily K. Harrison, an assistant professor of theater at Hamilton College and the producing artistic director of the Square Product Theater in Colorado. Harrison was primarily trained as an actor, with extensive experience in devised theatre, which emphasizes the ensemble.

Because of the ensemble nature of the play, Harrison was able to draw from her background in devised theatre to add a lot of ensemble movement into the blocking, therefore collaborating with the cast to create a scene that is unique to this production and truly captures her directorial vision.

“Nobody really wants to be told exactly what to do,” Harrison explained. “It’s nice to have those moments where the original creators say, ‘there should be something here, but we’re going to let you decide exactly what that should look like and build it with your ensemble.’”

Harrison has found working on this production very fulfilling. She said despite not knowing anyone in the area before coming down to work on “ROLEPLAY,” she was welcomed into the community with open arms. Harrison now thinks of every member of this production as family, a sentiment echoed by the cast.

“I’ve met so many incredible people and all of them are so different, and not even just in personality traits,” Dages said. “Genuinely, the diversity we have in this cast is incredible, and we’re really lucky to be able to tell a story with such diverse characters instead of a play that’s about all white, straight people. It’s really awesome to be able to tell this modern story about modern people.”

“ROLEPLAY” will have showings March 16 and 23 at 2 p.m. and March 19 to 22 at 7:30 p.m. March 23, closing night, will feature an ASL interpreter, and tickets can be purchased here.