A new UF play is showing how sexual assault impacts survivors and their loved ones.
UF’s Center for Arts in Medicine opened “Ashley’s Consent,” a free play about a girl who has been sexually assaulted, at the Newins-Ziegler Hall breezeway Monday night. Michael Martinez-Hamilton, a UF adjunct lecturer, wrote the play.
He got the idea to write about sexual assault in the middle of the night in August 2015, he said. He wanted to educate the community about it.
“I stayed up until the sun came out, and I just wrote a rough, rough draft,” he said.
Martinez-Hamilton said finding the time to write the play was difficult.
“It’s definitely been a labor of love,” he said.
Six UF students will perform the play this week, Martinez-Hamilton said. He hand-picked the cast because of how important the message was to him.
Aleksandr Kalishman reacts to another character in the "multi-media theatrical experience" about sexual assault, Ashley's Consent, in the Newins-Zeigler Hall Breezeway on Monday. The 26-year-old theatre sophomore at Santa Fe played faculty advisor Ben Hart during the play's opening night.
Marissa Secades, a UF theatre and English sophomore, plays the lead role of Ashley.
The 19-year-old said her favorite part of theater is it doesn’t answer questions, but it poses questions. It’s up to the audience to figure out the answers. She hopes the audience will do this during “Ashley’s Consent.”
“I just really hope that while watching, the audience can put themselves in the place of the characters,” she said.
The play is designed to be interactive, Martinez-Hamilton said. Throughout the play, characters move location and the audience moves with them. After the play ends, actors will lead a discussion with the audience about sexual assault on college campuses, bystander intervention and victim shaming.
“Hopefully they leave with the realization that you have the power to change the world in which you live,” he said.
Trip, played by Ryan Golden, 19, hits on his ex-girlfriend Ashley, played by Marissa Secades, 19, at a party. The characters moved the audience to other spots in the Newins-Zeigler Hall Breezeway throughout the night as they followed the story of Ashley's sexual assault and the reactions from her friends and family.
