Student-written plays are currently being accepted for the 2016 4Plays, an annual event highlighting various aspects of sexual health and identity.

Students must submit scripts by Feb. 15 so that there is enough time for staging and memorizing lines. Groups may also submit plays, and writers are also allowed to be actors in their own plays. Dr. Jon Tuttle, professor of English and co-coordinator of 4Plays script submissions, recommends students to meet with a member of the G-Week committee before submitting plays. The plays presented at the 4Plays will solely belong to the authors; however, FMU may perform the play again with the author’s permission.

The 4Plays has been a part of G-Week (formerly known as V-Week) for the past several years.

past several years. Submissions should be a student’s original work and should address issues concerning sexuality, gender and/or identity, such as sexually transmitted diseases, fetishism and asexuality. Each play should last 10-15 minutes.

10-15 minutes. “Toys, crabs, masturbation, no topic is off limits and no language is prohibited, if it works for the play,” Tuttle said.

The event’s coordinators do, however, reserve the right to decide whether or not a play is appropriate and applicable to FMU’s student community.

Tuttle also said that the purpose of having plays written by students is to hear their voices and opinions on sexuality and identity.

“We’re not looking for documentaries or informational brochures,” Tuttle said. “We want to hear the students’ voices, their stories or concerns. These plays can be funny, profane, graphic, tragic, embarrassing- anything that’s appropriate to their purpose, which is to raise awareness among the student body about the students’ bodies.”

The content in each story is up to the author, as long as it is still relevant to sexual or mental health.

“Plays can be for or about straights or gays or transgenders or crossdressers or undressers,” Tuttle said. “One might be aboue herpes and the social stigma or emotional fallout that comes with it. Another might be about date rape and the mentality that causes it, or the various ways- right and wrong- of dealing with it. Another might deal with a positive pregnancy test and the wave of emotions it creates.”

Tuttle also said he wanted to emphasize the reason that the week-long awareness campaign is called G-Week and not V-Week. G-Week deals with all genders and sexual issues that do not pertain only to women.

“We’d welcome plays that touch on the topic of maleness, the definition of masculinity, the standards that men are expected to live up to, fairly or unfairly,” Tuttle said.

Each year, the 4Plays has become larger than the last. Recently the audiences have become so large that there has been standing-roomonly in performance spaces.