"Before
you judge a person, get to know them because you might
actually like them," says Christina Sheler, a senior at
Benjamin Banneker Senior High School.
Christina's
play,
The
Antistereotypical Dinner, is about a young
interracial couple, Janae and Han, who decide to tell
their families about their recent engagement - and
their three year relationship - on the same day.
"The
first scene of the play is two households at the same
time, so it's like you're watching two scenes at once,"
Christina explains. Janae's African American family
makes a series of assumptions about her fiancé Han, who
is Asian, just as his family prejudges her. "There is
irony in my play because when the families come together
for dinner the parents realize that the stereotypes they
had for each other were actually false."
Christina
was inspired to tell this story based on her own
experiences with interracial dating. "I've dated
two Vietnamese guys, and I saw in a magazine that Asian
male and black female is the least common interracial
couple. I wanted to bring attention to that."
When she
isn't writing plays, Christina likes riding horses,
drawing, painting, writing and performing her poetry,
and playing the piano. She is looking forward to
studying dentistry next year at Rutgers University.
Marx Café
