I did this play back in college. It was the last show I was ever in and part of my Rehearsal and Performance class. The play was written around the time school shootings were prevalent, when it seemed like it was happening on a weekly or monthly basis. The whole play is in the head of a kid who opens fire in his school cafeteria. It goes into what led him to do what he did and his eventual guilt and realization of the consequences. If you haven’t read it, I’m sure you can find the script on the Internet. I highly recommend it. It is by far the most emotional play I’ve ever done.

Something always stuck in my mind after that class was over. The whole point of the class is to rehearse a play and then take it to area schools to perform it. Because it was such a hot topic at the time, most schools refused to let us perform it. The reality is administrators just didn’t understand and wouldn’t take the time to. If they had only seen the play they would’ve realized it wouldn’t push anyone into performing such a desperate act and might actually prevent it.

The reason I suddenly remember this show, which I did 5 years ago, is because I was surfing through Netflix the other day and discovered they made a movie based on the play. I just assumed it would be the play put into a movie, but it was ever better than that. It was actually about a high school drama club performing the play, with life imitating art in that the events being portrayed in the play were also happening at the high school.

But there was another instance of life imitating art, or more correcting the converse of that, because in the movie, administrators also didn’t understand the play and actually banned the drama club from performing it.

Anyway, I recommend checking it out. It’s a well done movie. And even better, the credits show video from actual performances of the play. So check it out if you can find it.