From Campus Collaboration to International Impact: The ROLEPLAY Project

Originally published in the 2024 issue of the School of Liberal Arts Magazine

In February of 2018, I was fortunate to team up with filmmaker and ethnographer Katie Mathews and members of the acclaimed New Orleans-based ensemble theatre company Goat in the Road Productions (GRP), to begin work on our unique interdisciplinary theatre project. Inspired by student responses to the startling results of the campus climate survey on sexual assault, released the previous month, we endeavored to use our expertise to empower young Tulanians to use their authentic stories and voices to change their culture from within.

The collaboration was an experiment full of unknowns: Would students sign up for a year-long theatre devising process, one that had no script and very few concrete details at the start? Could we marry theatre and film, simultaneously helping the students to create Roleplay as an on-stage production while also recording the process for an ensuing ROLEPLAY documentary film? If we succeeded in finding a brave group of students to take on this task, could a play about sexual violence and toxic behavior be truthful, thought-provoking, yet also entertaining?

The project exceeded all expectations. Roleplay’s on-stage production in September 2019, and subsequent remount in January 2023, had a profound impact on Tulane’s campus community. More than six years later, the project is resonating on a national and international level. In March of 2024, ROLEPLAY the film premiered in competition for best documentary at SXSW, to critical acclaim. The film had its regional premiere this October at the New Orleans Film Festival, with additional screenings this fall at the Heartland International Film Fest (Indianapolis, Indiana), the American Film Festival (Wroclaw, Poland), and DocNYC (New York). In March of 2025, the stage play will be remounted at Louisiana State University.

I cannot wait for a larger audience to get to know the brave Tulane students (now proud alumni) who created this project. As critic Ashley Smith noted: “Access to these brilliant young minds and what they’ve accomplished got to me on a cellular level. I remembered to be hopeful for a moment.” The ROLEPLAY project gives me hope, too.

While the problems of sexual violence and toxic behavior continue, I am grateful when I think of the unbreakable bonds of the castmates, of the internal support we’ve received from the School of Liberal Arts, the All-In Committee to Stop Sexual Violence, the Newcomb Institute, Gender and Sexuality Studies, the School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, Carol Lavin Bernick, student groups such as Sexual Aggression Peer Hotline and Education (SAPHE) and Sexual Violence Prevention and Response (SVPR), and so many others; of the way community partners like GRP, Gusto Moving Pictures, STAR, the New Orleans Family Justice Center share their wisdom; and how alumni like Nancy Rebold (NC ’88), an executive producer on the film, stepped in at a crucial time to ensure that our film made it to the finish line. The support we’ve received is unlike any project I have ever worked on and demonstrates that when a subject matter galvanizes Tulanians, they have the agency, the creativity, and the support to tackle complicated issues and make a positive impact on the world.

Katie Mathews, Ross Brill, Carl Briggs, Jr., Ashley Bailey, Jo Kramer, Lucy Sartor, Alexandra Elam, James Weiss, Aaron Avidon, Nagelle Leboyd, Grace Graugnard & Hannah Gordon.

“The support we’ve received is unlike any project I have ever worked on and demonstrates that when a subject matter galvanizes Tulanians, they have the agency, the creativity, and the support to tackle complicated issues and make a positive impact on the world.”
— Mercein

Executive Producer Abby Epstein, Mercein, Mathews, Nancy Rebold (NC ’88).
Top Photo: Official Film Poster. Red Carpet Photos: Shunya Carroll.