By: Alex Spindler

Xavier Players, the student-run theater club on campus, is set to premiere its annual installment of the dramatic piece, “Voices for Change.”

Featuring pieces revolving around social justice, this deeply moving show displays pieces ranging from monologues to music to slam poetry, all directed and produced by students.

A one-of-a-kind event, “Voices for Change” explores the troubling social justice issues facing our world today.

The performance uses an episodic structure and will feature momentary glimpses into student-actors’ realistic portrayals that concern the dark-side of worldly injustice.

Xavier students, who have researched and in some cases, experienced the issues presented, wrote some of these pieces.

Topics displayed throughout the performance will include relationship abuse, rape, gender and class discrimination, alcohol addiction and the stigma behind cochlear implants for individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing.

The show has long since been a passion for many Xavier students involved with the Xavier Players, ever since the inception of the show came back in the late 1990s.

Many find within its trenches a mission to give a voice to individuals too ashamed, embarrassed or terrified to speak up about their own oppression.

“This is my fourth year being a part of this show, and it is still my favorite production that the club puts on,” senior Katie Mootz, executive producer for both “Voices for Change” and for Xavier Players, said.

“The pieces are centered on issues which can be very controversial. However, while we can’t change the fact that these injustices happen, we can bring awareness to those not often discussed.”

In order to uphold the mission behind the performance, Xavier Players will be donating all proceeds from the show to To Write Love on Her Arms, an organization dedicated to breaking down the stigmas of mental illness and addiction.

Xavier Players has previously donated proceeds from the season’s first show, “Toolbox,” to the National Suicide Hotline, an organization that is pulling its own weight towards preventing suicide and encouraging therapy and health.

Xavier Players will be selling tickets for “Voices for Change” 30 minutes before each performance. The show starts at 7:30 p.m. on Nov. 14, and runs each night until Nov. 17.

Tickets cost $3 per person and the performances are held in the Gallagher Student Center Studio Theatre located next to the mainstage theater.