The Maze of Why

Rosemary FrisinoToohey

How can you be a parent and not think about the possibility of a school shooting?

Frankly, how can you be alive in the twenty-first century and not focus on such an occurrence when it happens again…and again…and again? This awful phenomenon has become, quite terribly, almost routine.

So, how did I end up writing a play about school shootings?

The idea did not begin with me. The artistic director and executive producer of Spotlighters Theatre in Baltimore, Bob Russell, had been impressed with several plays that I’d written. After a school shooting in Paducah, Kentucky, he approached me and asked if I was interested in writing a play about that tragedy. I was flattered but initially reluctant. As a mother of four, I knew it would take me to a place I really didn’t want to go…

But, the question at the heart of it—why would a teenager turn a gun on his schoolmates? was just too intriguing to say no.

Early on, I decided to scrap the idea of a play based solely on the Paducah shooting and I created the fictitious Central City High School. There’s no mention in the script of any state or part of the country. It’s everywhere and nowhere. So I began, spending months researching school shootings.

Sadly, the list is long. There have been 416 deadly school shootings in the US since Columbine, Colorado in 1999. But in that list is a mind-numbing maze of similarities. There are, of course, exceptions, but overwhelmingly the “typical” school shooter is a white male aged fifteen or sixteen. He’s not in the “in” crowd and mostly he keeps to himself. That’s the profile.

Beyond that is the inevitable question…why? And once you begin to ponder, the questions only multiply.

What signs were missed? What words weren’t heard? Perhaps if this had happened, then maybe that wouldn’t have? Why did he have access to a deadly weapon? And what disappointments or resentments in his young life morphed into a tragedy that sparked the terrible decision to point a gun at his fellow students? Why this kid? Why?

Raising teenagers is not for the faint of heart. Neither is teaching teens. But the kids in SHARDS talk…a lot. At the confluence of the child/adult world, the play focuses on their thoughts, ranging from the maddeningly immature to the admirably insightful. Learning to drive, to date, to deal with the future, managing the demands at home and school, and just trying to figure out what all those hormones are doing, how do they cope?

Inevitably, they end up asking the big questions, including the most important one…why, why, why?

Is there a way to bring an end to school shootings? I don’t have the answer.

Is it possible that you do?