Director's
Notes
I
REMEMBER THE COLUMBINE SHOOTINGS. Unfortunately
the memory is vague. I was engulfed in a theatre production
at the
time that somehow disconnected me from the outside world.
It wasn't until a week later when I finally picked up
a magazine that I began to understand the size of this
event. I started to ask, "What happened in those
two boys' lives that caused this reaction, and why did
it take a week for me to notice?" Three years later,
I decided that never again would my mode of artistic expression
not be directly connected to the world around me. I desperately
wanted to create theatre events that would examine the
major human events that impact our culture. The United
States Theatre Project was my answer to that, and the
first venture would be a search for answers to the questions
of Columbine.
When
we started the project in the summer of 2002, I always
thought we would come pretty close
to answering to the notorious question: "why?" After
traveling to Littleton and meeting parents, children,
survivors and community leaders, we realized there
are so many
answers from every perspective, including from the
shooters themselves. With all these answers, we noticed
things
had not changed even in Littleton. Life went on. And
all the reasons "why" remain.
We asked ourselves, "What could this piece suggest
as a different means of prevention? What new answer could
we give?"
We
eventually answered that question with more questions:
How do we treat each other? Why do we treat each other
the way we do? Why do kids, who will soon ask these questions
about their kids, continue to treat each other the same
way? Why does this cycle never change, even after the
kids themselves resort to bombs and guns and butchering
their,
fellow students to prove a point? Why do we look for
an easy answer -- a pill to take, a program to turn off
-- when we know in our hearts that something deep inside
us has
to change? What are we afraid of?
columbinus is
not a play; it is a theatrical discussion. The title
(Latin
for "dove-like") is similar
to a medical term, suggesting an examination or procedure.
Its creators wanted to create a fictional world of
adolescence, born out of our collective experience.
Just as this fictional high school could be anywhere
in America, so could the potential for a school shooting.
We spoke with hundreds of adolescents to hear what
they had to say about their world, We let them be the
teachers,
guiding us to their answers. At the same time, we collected
as much written and aural fact about Columbine as
we could gather from every source under the sun, including
many conversations with people in Littleton. The merger
of these two worlds would be the subject for discussion.
As
the journey continues with a production at Perseverance
Theatre in Juneau, Alaska, I suggested to my colleagues
more possible rewrites. Exasperated, one said, "God,
when do we stop writing this piece?" I think we
will always feel the need to continue turning this Rubik's
Cube. It's the same for our audience. The piece doesn't
end in Silver Spring tonight. The success of columbinus relies
on the conversations that it stimulates in the
car, at home in bed, at the dinner table with the
kids, or at school. Adolescents
should keep us thinking, keep us asking questions,
but most of all, keep us listening.
columbinus is
dedicated to all the voices that were silenced by the
shootings on April 20, 1999. No one should ever feet
that alone again.
PJ
Paparelli,
Director/Co-Writer/Conceiver
