On Feb. 17, the Black Student Alliance and the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion invited students to join “The Defamation Experience,” a play in which the audience is the jury and decides the outcome of the play.

Gina Taliaferro has been a member of Canamac Productions since 2011. “I started off as the under-study for all of the female roles for ‘Defamation’ when it was touring production,” said Taliaferro. “The next year, I started to play Ms. Jordan, and I played her for like two years on and off. After that, I became a tour manager and then an associate producer, director and facilitator.”

“Our play writer Todd Logan writes these plays from the perspective that each party is telling the truth as they understand it. There is no ending that isn’t determined by the audience,” said Taliaferro.

“Dr. Pitale had reached out to us because she had seen ‘The Defamation Experience’ previously several years ago and thought of bringing it here to Bridgewater,” said Jason Parker.

During the play, audience members watched a recording of the defamation case of Regina Wade vs. Mr. Golden. Wade was suing Golden for accusing her of stealing his father’s watch and not doing business with her company because of it, which financially damaged her as a result.

”I really enjoyed it. It was really informative,” said sophomore Erin Dameron. “It gave me a perspective of how different people interact with each other and what defamation is itself and how that affects trials and people’s lives.”

Factors of race, religion and economic status were put into consideration during the trial. After the audience members deliberated on all the evidence presented to them, the unanimous decision was in favor of Regina Wade.

“‘Defamation’ is the original play that started everything, and in 2021, we released a new play called “Just Caused,” said Parker. “It is set in 2021 at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, and because of the time and all the things going on in the world, it talks about the murder of George Floyd, MeToo feminism and organizations’ roles in the matter of social justice.”