The legacy of a New Brunswick teen who launched the global kindness movement #beccatoldmeto will soon be playing out on stage.
The play called Becca written by Melanie Leger is a bilingual production that shares the story of Rebecca Schofield of Riverview who, after being diagnosed with terminal cancer, started an online kindness movement in 2016 to encourage people to perform acts of kindness and post their deeds to social media using the hashtag #BeccaToldMeTo.
Becca is being produced by Theatre New Brunswick along with Caraquet’s Théâtre Populaire d’Acadie and plays out like a documentary of the kindness movement on stage.
“There is nothing made up it is everything that happened,” said Natasha MacLellan who is executive director for Theatre NB.
MacLellan said that subtitles appear on a screen behind the actors to allow for Francophone and Anglophone audience members to take in the production.
“She had this fear that she would be forgotten that she had not lived long enough she had no legacy,” said Becca’s mother Anne Schofield.
But, she said, her daughter’s hashtag became her legacy, inspiring people in 94 countries around the world to perform acts of kindness.
Danielle Toner is an actress in the production and says that the entire crew is feeling a deep sense of pride in the production that is set to tour the province later this month.
“When you are in the room regardless of what language you feel connected to each other I think and to the kindness movement,” said Toner.
Schofield said that she and Becca’s father Darren Schofield watched a screening of the play and were moved by how well the play honours their daughter’s memory and her legacy.
“I get a bit emotional now when I think about the play and I think about how she has affected people,” said Schofield.
Becca passed away in 2018 at the age of 18, but MacLellan said her kindness message lives on and she hopes that playhouses across Canada will pick up the production, rejuvenating the #beccatoldme to kindness movement.
“We just need so much more of it in the world,”, she said.
Maclellan said the essence of Becca is felt throughout the production, but no actor plays her roll
“It doesn’t seem right to have an actor play her, it just doesn’t,” she said adding that there has never been nor will there ever be another Becca.