Some days, those neighbors get along just fine. Some days they don't. And sometimes that hits all too close to home.

The lives of high school students today are filled with issues and pressures. The stew in their "melting pot" has many new ingredients that have long been heating up--it's no longer just different races and cultures living together, it's also different sexual orientations.

Homosexuality has been a hot topic across the country of late, what with the gay marriage debate ruffling conservative feathers and, as many speculate, strongly influencing the recent presidential election. To some, it is an exciting argument they enjoy weighing in on. To others, it is a deeply sensitive, religious issue that is simply off-limits.

How does it register with local teens?

A small group of Saratoga High School students decided to stand strong and show the community exactly how it registers with them when they put on a controversial play that does anything but sidestep the issues of homosexuality and hate crimes.

Despite what some were afraid would be a disturbing and offensive presentation--or at the very least one that would simply provoke immature giggles among teens in the audience--Saratoga High School's drama department has been earning enthusiastic praise and thoughtful, mature responses with its production of The Laramie Project.

The Laramie Project was written by Moises Kaufman and members of the Tectonic Theater Project. It deals with the real-life 1998 fatal kidnapping and beating of a gay University of Wyoming student, Matthew Shepard.

Shortly after his death, members of the TTP traveled to Laramie, Wyo., where it all took place, and conducted countless interviews with Shepard's friends and family members and witnesses and investigators involved in the case, and hospital workers who tried to save Shepard's life. They even attended his funeral and the trial that sent his killers to prison.

The play is presented as a series of performances of those interviews and subsequent journal entries. It is anything but light, including explicit sexual language and some profanity, and it showcases some extremely emotional testimonies. The play had been performed at Saratoga High School in the past, and due to what parents, teachers and administrators at the school say was a strong, positive response to the subject matter, the drama department revived the production for additional performances, including a few during school hours so that teachers could bring their classes in hopes that it could potentially reach all Saratoga High students.

"I believe that the play's message is a positive one for our larger community and think that [director] Kathleen Woods and her students should be commended for presenting this show. The play's message is more timely than ever and reminds us of things we have in common with each other," says Charlotte Sparacino, mother of one of the cast members and chairwoman of the school's Diversity Task Force. "I was deeply touched by how respectful the student audience was."

When questioned, many audience members did indeed seem to think the play's subject matter was important for Saratoga High students.

"I think it's a good thing to have a play about," says Sarah Thermond, 15. "I think it's a really big issue."

Parsan Saffaie, a senior, says she has two very close friends--also Saratoga High students--who are openly gay, and that the production of The Laramie Project gave her a deeper appreciation for their struggle and their right to be happy with their sexual orientation. She says it also brought to mind other social issues that teens face.

"To understand how important it is to them made me more aware," she said following a performance of the play. "Not just [of] gays but people with other social issues. It also made me more comfortable with myself. It made me realize that people in society are going to judge you, but you can't let it stop you from being who you want to be."

Parsan says that her gay friends face some amount of prejudice on campus but even more in other places they go in Saratoga and around the Bay Area.

Kat Nakaji, 18, a senior who played a role in the cast and was one of the show's assistant directors, is openly lesbian on campus and elsewhere. She hopes that the show will encourage other homosexual students not to feel as though they need to hide.

"On campus, there is an air of silence," she says. "If you don't talk about it, it won't come up. If it doesn't come up, then it's not an issue."

Kat says she doesn't experience too much prejudice on campus, although she does on occasion outside of school. Kat feels part of that is because gay males experience more prejudice and hatred than lesbians do.

"Apparently being a lesbian is cool; it's the 'in' thing to be these days," she says. "When Britney Spears kissed Madonna on TV [during the Grammy Awards], people had pictures of it as their screensavers for months."

Chip Kraemer, 17, an openly gay student who was also in the cast of The Laramie Project and served as the show's other assistant director, agrees. He feels he gets more backlash as a gay male on campus than some of his lesbian classmates do.

"You get the random 'fag' sometimes," he says.

Chip says that just recently, he was walking through the parking lot at school, and another student drove by, rolled down his window and yelled "Chip's a fag!" at him.

Kat and Chip both say that an adult male recently stationed himself near the front of the school and was handing out fliers for his website to students, encouraging them to "go home and tell your parents the truth." When the two students got home and visited his website, they were offended to discover the sites contained anti-gay messages and pointed fingers at campus administrators. The website accused school officials of covering up facts surrounding the 2002 arrest of former assistant principal John Martin Nichols after he was accused of sexually propositioning a male student on two occasions.

"It was so ridiculously hurtful," says Kat of the messages on the man's website. "It's amazing to know there is someone in our community with such a capacity to hate."

Chip says he was also offended and angered by the man's anti-gay messages.

"Apparently we're committing treason by being gay," he says.

Karen Hyde, assistant principal at Saratoga High, says the administration is doing its best to promote tolerance among all students at Saratoga High and encourage respectful treatment of students of other sexual orientations. However, she says, it is not an easy feat to accomplish.

"From our perspective, we do as much as we can with tolerance and diversity, but you're dealing with adolescents exploring sexuality, which can always be a problem," says Hyde. "We try to build bridges and understanding among everybody, and you do the best you can do."

Hyde says she feels Saratoga High is not faring too badly but says she also understands that as an administrator she is somewhat removed from the issue.

"I think we're a pretty accepting campus, but I'm not a gay adolescent male or a lesbian adolescent female," she says.

Hyde says that the administration promotes the Gay-Straight Alliance on campus and adds that teams of adults have gone around to classrooms in the past to talk to students about laws and respect.

Cindy Ranii, superintendent of the Los Gatos­Saratoga High School District, says the Diversity Task Force has been going strong since 2001 and works hard to spread the values of mutual respect and acceptance on the district's campuses.

"The 24-person task force meets quarterly to provide momentum and direction. We take a pulse of the district by representing many views and sharing observations and issues, and we bring current issues of district-wide concern to the table. It's a forum for sharing ideas and we try to build expertise and skill in terms of addressing issues of diversity," she says.

Ranii says she believes the Diversity Task Force has made progress in the few years since its inception.

"I feel very good about it. I think the district has a rigorous focus on being a learning community where everyone is respected and every viewpoint is honored," she says. "I think we've made a lot of progress. Survey data shows we're making our campuses safe and caring places for our young people. That's our vision."

Hyde says the hard work needs to continue.

"It's never enough," she says. "If we could stop the hurt [for all types of students and issues] we would, but it's a lifetime of working on this issue."

Kat agrees.

"It's not something someone's going to learn overnight," she says. "But I hope [efforts like The Laramie Project] make them think."

For more information on the district's Diversity Task Force, call Superintendent Cindy Ranii at 408.354.2520, ext. 234, or email her at cranii@lgsuhsd.org.