playbill vip

Project: Shattered Silence has been in the Tampa Bay community for 5 years.  I been working with Ruth Eckerd Hall in Clearwter, Florida and produced 6 original productions of the project since the inception of the project in 2009.

The project started as simply a way to express and honor what makes us all different.  However, it has grown and developed into a celebration of our similarities despite our differences.  It believes that life is never one thing.  No person ever fits into one group.  We are all made up of many different unoriginal things.  And it is the combination of all of those unoriginal things that gives us originality.

The stories are all true, and we shy away from very little.  We discuss cutting, eating disorders, death of a parent, suicide, immigration, etc.  and we talk about about these topics from the human standpoint - that way even if you have never been through any of these things you will be able to identify.  However, just like life, nothing is all sadness - so humor is HIGHLY interwoven into these powerful stories (which are told in a very unique "reality theater" style).

Recently we added parents into the performance, because as much as we want to feel that we are alone through everything that we go through - we actually never are.  It may just never be the people we thought that were there for us the whole time.

I encourage everyone reading this to please take the time to see the documentary that was made on the project by WEDU, a PBS affiliate out of Tampa Bay.  This documentary will very soon be available for all PBS stations across the country.  Project: Shattered Silence already won a 2013 Emmy Award for an 8-minute segment that was produced about these powerful stories.  However, please take the time to sit with your children, and share in these powerful lives - and then share it with others.  You can find the documentary at www.wedu.org/projectshatteredsilence.

Own your life, own your story.  Be proud of your history.  Nobody can ever bullied an empowered person - and you cannot be empowered until you accept who you are completely - and honor that person.  They deserve it.

Jared O'Roark

Artistic Director/Creator of Project: Shattered Silence