UMass Amherst Holds Auditions for Sexual Assault Campaign

by Mark Daly

Several students showed off their acting skills on Monday evening when they participated in an open tryout for a series of Public Service Announcements being organized by the Northwestern District Attorney’s Domestic Violence and Assault Unit.
      Held in the offices of UMass Amherst’s Center for Women and Community, more than a dozen students read aloud from scripts depicting various cases of sexual assault. Each student was auditioning to be part of the final filming, set to take place on March 9th. The chosen actor’s will appear in a total of three 30 second films, which will be broadcast through social media sites.
       Directing the students were Mary Patierno and Natalia Muñoz, consultants from the District Attorney’s Office who helped organize the auditions as well as offer feedback on the performances to see what worked best. Besides making suggestions on how to approach the scenes, both women discussed ways to make students attentive to their message.
       One of the biggest challenges that the hopeful actors faced was the idea that they must really fit the part, as Muñoz stated. Individuals were told that they must feel comfortable in the situations, some of which included acting that might not be considered appropriate in some people’s opinion. All participants seemed to agree that acting out these scenes were crucial to getting the complete message across to viewers.
      Among the students auditioning were UMass sophomores Mitch Scuzzarella and Jeff Okerman. When their turn was called, they, along with fellow student Michael Lipton, read aloud from the script titled, “Guy Talk,” which has three male characters conversing at a college party. The final message, as written in the script, is that “sexual assault isn’t cool.”
       Written by a group of students, in conjunction with Assistant District Attorney Susan Loehn and Mary Kociela, the program Director for the Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Unit for the Offices of Northwestern D.A. David E. Sullivan, the PSA’s featured various staged scenes where sexual assaults could most likely occur on a college campus. Each script was adjusted to make it seem as realistic as possible for the audience.
        Although the amount of acting experience varied amongst each student, it appeared that the two directors were quite pleased with everyone’s performance. They stated that they were open to students improvising the scene and adding anything that seemed appropriate to add to the campaigns overall message.
        Each student was told that they could expect the results of the audition by Wednesday.