An African-American man laments the fact that people lock their cars when he approaches and says that people write the story of his life based on scripts from TV.

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A young man who thinks he might be gay asks, "Why does homosexuality get lumped in with alcoholism, pedophilia and drug addiction as something that is loathed?"

A 20-year-old virgin asks, "Who came up with the three-date rule?"

Stereotypes in America asks questions that are usually taboo, that aren't discussed in polite company.

The play is composed of a series of monologues written by Adrienne Nadeau and co-directed with Jeffrey Skatzka. Adrienne wrote the script as an assignment for a University of Tampa class in alternative writing. Based on real-life experiences of Adrienne's friends, the play discusses the shades of gray in our thinking about stereotypes.

The atheist says that organized religion has been the source of our problems for thousands of years. "Religion doesn't make any sense. We believe what we're told. Be fruitful. Go forth and multiply. This philosophy is the source of war, disease and suffering in the world."

A Muslim girl is harassed by a customer at her work for not being Christian.

A young woman captures the love/hate relationship that most women have with food. "I want to be thin. I'd love to be anorexic, or have my stomach cut out like a tumor. People say, ‘You have such a pretty face and think to themselves, even though you're fat.'"

I could personally relate to quite a bit in Stereotypes in America. Not that I want to have these stereotypes, I don't, but years of social conditioning have left some of this embedded in my brain. Perhaps I've been alone on a dark street and someone approaches. I size them up. If it's a woman or an older man, I breathe a sigh of relief. If it's an African American man in a Polo shirt and kakis, I also breathe a sigh of relief. If it's a younger man or group of men who are in gang wear, I cross to the other side of the street. I feel guilty about having these stereotypes, but I do, nonetheless.

Much of the discussion centered around race, religion and sexuality. Actors Amanda Abadi, David Durney, Richard Girard, Venus Jones & Ibin Rogers did a fine job of interpreting the material, and their voices and mannerisms seemed natural in most places, though I found that some of them read the varied monologues as basically the same character.  It was interesting that at times, some of them performed monologues against type, such as a thin African-American woman talked about being fat.  A white man talked about the problems of being ethnic.  All appeared to be in their 20s.  It might have been nice to have had an older or transgender person to balance out the cast, with monologues pertinent to their situations.

Studio@620 is a very fitting, intimate venue for this kind of production. The performances were a benefit for The Warrior Woman, Inc., a local non-profit organization dedicated to bringing empowering writing workshop to teens and at-risk youth.

It's very important to have these discussions. Theater like this starts a conversation. For a moment, it jolts your world.

Stereotypes in America played for one weekend April 30, May 1-2, 2009 at Studio@620.