BLACKSBURG -- "Does someone have to die before the school does anything about this?" A Virginia Tech student who reported being harassed for being gay posed that question to graduate student Megan Carney about a year ago.

Carney, who serves on the diversity committee for the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences, said she has been haunted by those words and wanted do something. So she wrote a play.

"A lot of times in our culture we wait for horrible things to happen before we really make change, so as a theater maker who likes to interview people and make new plays, I saw that question as a call to start talking to people about safety. And it's been fascinating since that happened," Carney said. "I've talked to a lot of different people and collected their stories and all of those stories and all of those conversations have filtered into this show."

"[classified]: untold stories of Virginia Tech" premiered in the fall at Glade Church in Blacksburg. Its second public performance was Wednesday at Tech.

The six-member cast has also performed in campus classrooms. Alisha Saunders, Clarence Brown III, Dan Waidelich, Mehmet Ege, Sarah Hoffman and Carney all come from different walks of life: male, female, black, white, international, local, gay and straight.

All are students at Virginia Tech learning to function in a diverse community. Some are graduate students, some are freshmen. Some are theater majors, some aren't.

During the play, their perspectives and the perspectives of others who have described their stories to Carney.

Saunders tells the story of a 17-year-old girl learning the negative use of the word "gay" and being curious about her uncle's sexuality. Carney tells the story of a young woman and her girlfriend being harassed as they walk down an Atlanta sidewalk. The actors use few props and costumes during the performance.

Christina O'Connor | The Roanoke Times

Clarence Brown, a Virginia Tech graduate student, reads a story about feeling unsafe from one of the many postcards that have been collected from students around campus, during the production of “[classified]: untold stories of Virginia Tech.”

They also draw from their own experiences, talking about times they felt unsafe at Tech,

Someone wrote "Hang the n------" and "Go back 2 Africa" on the NAACP office door in 2004.

"When you're part of an organization, at least for those of us in the NAACP, the office is like your second home. Can you imagine if someone did that to your home?" Brown asked the audience.

Afterward, audience members are to write their stories on the back of postcards, many of which are photos of Blacksburg taken by Carney.

Wednesday's audience had mixed reactions.

"I came tonight because I'm really interested in improving the learning environment at Virginia Tech," said Brandon Kliewer, a graduate student. "Issues of diversity and tolerance are very important in creating a learning environment that's conducive to growing as a person and growing as an academic, growing as a citizen of the United States. I think Virginia Tech is a good school and it can improve by addressing these issues openly."

Lesly Velazquez, an exchange student from Mexico, said she doesn't always take offense when someone pinpoints her as different.

"I really would like to see both sides, like things are going on and you have to do something about it, but the other hand is that you don't have to overreact or go to the extreme like 'oh poor me' because as an exchange student, as a foreign person, you also have to adapt yourself everywhere you go," Velazquez said.

Liam Kaas-Lentz is a first year graduate student who attended the performance.

"A lot of that stuff I saw tonight was a total surprise to me, because I don't see it. I don't see it on the streets, but apparently it does happen," he said.

Administrators with Tech's Office of Multicultural Affairs saw the play in January, when it was performed as part of the university's 10th annual Diversity Summit, said Project Specialist for Diversity Initiatives Ray Plaza.

"The play has highlighted the importance of ways to improve the campus climate," Plaza said. "It is clear that we need to communicate with the community about these situations. I'd say that the play has reinforced the office's efforts to move forward with different initiatives."

The cast will perform April 5 at Glade Church. This time, an art exhibit also called "[classified]: untold stories" will be on display in the church's Fine Arts Gallery, which also serves as the sanctuary.

"We've asked the artists to interpret that theme however they choose," Glade Church pastor Kelly Sisson said. "We've given them a little information about the play and its direction. We don't know what we'll get."

Sisson said the play coincides well with the church's traditional service on Maundy Thursday, a time of darkness and shadows before the remembrance of Christ's crucifixion on Black Friday.

"The philosophy of why we did this is that so often we get stuck in that traditional story that we don't live the story around us," Sisson said. "This play looks at the people who are in margins and dark areas that we need to bring light to. There are people right here in our own community that don't feel safe. If anyone is questioning why we would do this during passion week, what more would live out our faith than to bring light to places where people are placed in margins and placed in the dark?"