Secret drama ritual banned

The boys stayed.

After the girls left, the boys clasped hands, swore silence and formed a circle: a “man circle.” They continued, many unknowingly, many unwillingly, a long and quiet drama tradition. But before long, they broke their circle and their silence, shaken by the meaning of their actions and by Principal Kevin Buchanan.

“During man circle, some degrading and demeaning comments were made about women and girls, specifically girls in our program, in our drama program, that were offensive and completely out of line with what we expect from our students,” Buchanan said.

The events unfolded less than half an hour before the beginning of the Saturday, March 12 matinee performance of “Mary Poppins.” A parent overheard the boys and informed the principal. Buchanan took swift action against the few students who had led the activity.

“The first thing that hit me when I heard that this had happened,” Allan Hunt, the play’s director, said, “was, wait a minute, what year is this? Are we still doing this?”

The activity lasted for somewhere between five and 10 minutes, according to Peter Ye, a sophomore in orchestra.

Ye and a number of other boys were new to the activity.

“I wasn’t expecting anything bad at first, … and then it just kind of got worse and worse as it went along,” Ye said. “They were being really sexist. I just felt not good being in there, uncomfortable.”

Stephen Burt, another freshman in orchestra, also experienced man circle for the first time that day.

“It was just a tradition gone wrong. And they took it, and it got way out of hand,” Burt said. “A lot of people asked us why we didn’t stop it. And it was kind of like, it happened so quick, and so fast, and it was so unexpected. We were like, what just happened?”

But the advent of man circle was not nearly so rapid. The original circle, which students traditionally participate in prior to man circle, includes both male and female students and has an especially long history.

“[The original, coed circle] was here before I got here. It was started by students years ago. And it’s sort of a bonding ceremony, because for actors and actresses, it gets really emotional when you’re doing a play and you get nervous, this is a reassuring kind of a ceremony,” Hunt said.

“Generation after generation of classes, it’s passed on in such a way that it’s almost official. New students come in, they pick it up, they carry it on. And it’s been this way for 16 years.”

Over time, however, students quietly formed gender-specific circles. OPHS alumna Callie Hughes, who graduated in 2011, remembered boys forming the first male circle during her sophomore or junior year. Her account suggests that man circle has existed for at least seven years.

“The kids were very good at keeping this under wraps, and I will say that nobody came forward to tell us that this was happening. … It’s not been reported, and I don’t know that it would have been reported on this occasion had a parent not walked up and witnessed it,” Buchanan said.

While man circle proceeded before the performance March 12, the female students associated with the play formed a circle of their own — albeit with different practices and subtexts.

That day, they complimented the girl on their left and hugged the girl on their right.

“I’d rather be a part of that for sure. It just sounded like a lot more positive environment than what we were doing,” Ye said.

Seeking to prevent another such situation, Buchanan took action against all forms of circle.

“There won’t be any more man circles. I don’t believe there will be any more lady circles. And there’s going to be an adult in the co-ed circle in the future. We’re not going to have any unsupervised circles in the future,” the principal said.

He addressed the entire cast and crew before the Saturday matinee performance and again the next day.

“It was a very healing thing, and we addressed how this affected everybody,” Hunt said.

Madison Williams, a member of the play’s ensemble, said she wasn’t personally offended.

“What else do you expect from a whole bunch of guys going outside and chanting in a circle?” Williams said.

Both Burt and Ye said that they believed the boys’ actions did not reflect their true beliefs.

“Those guys don’t mean it. I know [one of the circle leaders] personally, and he respects women probably more than anyone I know,” Burt said.

Although some were ready to forgive the boys’ actions based on their character, the actions were deemed inconsistent with their school’s objectives.

“It’s a terrible thing where a school that prides itself as we do on our accomplishments that this can still happen,” Hunt said. “But here we are.”

The paradoxical quality of the situation was not lost on Buchanan. “Mary Poppins” describes the evolution of the character George Banks. Initially dismissive of movements for women’s rights and tangled in old attitudes toward gender roles, he learns from Mary Poppins to share the burden of child-rearing and to respect women.

“It took an empowered woman to teach him that lesson. And he became enlightened, an enlightened husband and father,” Buchanan said.

“This [male circle] was a very un-enlightened event that happened. So that irony was kind of thick. What’s the point of doing drama and doing these morality plays if you’re not going to get the message?”

But, as a consequence of the school’s response to the events, students were well-positioned to get the message.

“If you don’t learn from something like this,” Hunt said, “nobody is paying attention.”