Could a stage play motivate people to act in real life?

Second of two parts.

Kids learn a lot from participating in theater. Shows can take them to times and places, put them in scenarios they otherwise could only imagine.

But this time, this place and this scenario they know. A troupe of teenage actors had just finished a dramatic retelling of the 1999 Columbine High School shooting and they were answering questions on stage at Greasepaint Youtheatre in Scottsdale.

“It hits adults hardest because it’s new to them,” said actor George Nassar, a junior at Phoenix Country Day School. “We’re used to it.”

It’s been 20 years since Columbine, longer than the teens have been alive. They’ve grown up with lockdowns and active-shooter drills.

“This isn’t new for us,” Sophia Penn, a senior at Arizona School for the Arts, said. “The truth is, we think about this all the time.” They’ve had to.

The second question, was from Theresa Tornquist, whose daughter Eden was in the cast: “Are you mad at us? Are you mad at the adults for not doing something to stop this?”

They’re not mad, the kids said. It’s just how it is.

“The part that makes us angry is that no one is doing anything about it now,” said Maile Griego, a senior at Arizona School for the Arts who worked on the tech crew.

“We need change.”

This play was important to Maile, Sophia, George and the other kids. It’s one thing for people to know that something happened or read about it. But seeing it like this, getting to know the characters, watching it unfold, hearing the words, even on stage, maybe someone would do something.

Vote. Speak up. Anything. “I apologize that we haven’t done better,” Gerry said. She’s been doing this work since 1995 after her brother was killed by a man with an assault rifle.

We owe the kids an apology. It's the least we can do. But we owe them so much more.