The Colorado Mesa University theatre department preformed Bang, Bang, You’re Dead! in the Mesa Experimental Theatre inside the Moss Performing Arts Center.
Bang Bang You’re Dead! is a one-act play written by William Mastrosimone with the assistance of Michael Fisher that premiered on April 7, 1999 at Thurston High School in Springfield, Oregon. The next day, the play was made available for free and the internet.
Mastrosimone had gone through months of negotiations with the Thurston High School administrations, faculty and parents. The problem? The play is strongly based on the events surrounding Kip Kinkel’s shootings of his parents and 27 of his classmates at the same high school the previous May.
The play was student directed by CMU student Jordan Gray. “I’ve been working on this play and the production itself for over two years,” Gray said. “For me it was a personal project, I had done the show as an actor in high school.”
Bang Bang You’re Dead! is about a school shooting, but instead of highlighting it, it delves deeper and tries to make sense of the tragedy.
“This show is diving into the aspects of school shootings and why they happen and instead of putting blame specifically on the shooter it actually looks at the overall outlook of what’s going through the shooters mind,” CMU student Jonathon Botello said.
Botello performed the role of Guiseppe Zangara in the musical Assassins back in September. This time Botello performed as Actor four, which had multiple roles and was one of the voices inside Josh’s head convincing him to cause the school shooting. Shandon Rushton performed the role of Josh, our shooter in question.
“I think it’s important to just inform yourself as much and to realize how much of impact school shootings have in the world,” Botello said.
“Specifically, I wanted this to be an educational experience,” Gray said. “This show also focuses on mental illness and how people don’t take mental illness as serious as it should be taken.”
Bang Bang You’re Dead was performed on Thursday, Friday and Saturday, Oct 25, Oct 26 and Oct 27 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets were sold for 10 dollars for adults, 8 dollars for seniors and 6 dollars for students. The play was rated PG-13.
