Pitt play spurred by Steubenville rape case helps with ‘uncomfortable conversation’

Men­tion “Steuben­ville” and thoughts run to the sen­sa­tional, so­cial me­dia-fu­eled rape case in­volv­ing a young woman, mem­bers of a high school foot­ball team and a party.

The fo­cus of “Good Kids,” a work of fic­tion in­spired, but not de­fined, by the events of that 2013 in­ci­dent in Ohio, in­volves sim­i­lar themes. The play, by Naomi Ii­zuka, will be pre­sented by the Univer­sity of Pitts­burgh’s Stages the­ater group Wed­nes­day through Nov. 22 at the Hey­mann The­atre in Oak­land.

“You don’t want this sort of thing to hap­pen any­where, and cer­tainly not with high school stu­dents. We hap­pen to be at a uni­ver­sity,” said Kim­berly Grif­fin, who is co-di­rect­ing the pro­duc­tion with Lisa Jack­son-Sche­betta. Ms. Grif­fin said stu­dents al­ready have come forth to say, “ ‘I’m re­ally glad you’re do­ing this play,’ ‘this hap­pened to me,’ ‘this hap­pened to my friend,’ ‘I’m an RA, I see this sort of thing all the time … .’ ”