ATC will dedicate a performance of its production columbinus to the NITT ACT initiative.
Reception: At 6:30 PM ATC will host a reception with the director and writer, PJ Paparelli, and survivors and families of the Columbine High School shootings. ATC’s Youth Ensemble will host the event and discuss their experience in visiting Columbine High School and the memorial.
Performance: At 8:00 PM NITT-Act youth and their chaperones attend a performance ofcolumbinus
Talkback Discussion: Following the performance, the cast and director along with the survivors will participate in a conversation with the audience about the production, the event and its impact.
Tickets: 50 tickets will be set aside for NITT ACT partners and students. These tickets are available on a first come basis through January 31st. Please reserve your tickets by contacting the ATC box office (773)409-4125 and using the code NITT.
Questions: Contact Lynne Pace Green (lpacegreen@atcweb.org) or Michael Driscoll (mdriscoll@atcweb.org) or call the ATC Education office at 773-409-4125, ext. #107.
Details on columbinus:
In response to the infamous 1999 Columbine High School Shootings columbinus was written almost ten years ago to address what was at the time, a growing number of school shootings. Based on interviews with teenagers across the country and survivors and community members in Littleton, columbinus takes a hard look at youth and violence through the lens of one the most infamous high school shooting in American history. Unfortunately, the issue of mass school shootings is once again shocking America and forcing us all to look within our homes and communities to ask the unanswerable question of “Why?”
ATC hopes that columbinus will lead to important discussions about gun control, mental health treatment, and create a forum for Chicagoans to further this dialogue and provide a more thorough reflection on mass shootings and gun violence.
In addition to ATC’s production of columbinus, the script will serve as the focal point for ATC’s American Mosaic project. Mosaic is a literary residency that goes into Chicago public high schools and works with 9th grade English classes requiring students to get deep inside a select script by producing scene work from it. Over 900 CPS students and teachers in 28 classrooms will partner with their teachers and ATC artists to discuss and analyze columbinus and what it has to say about violence. Each classroom is assigned a scene of the play and every student works as an actor, designer or crewmember to produce their scene. Each classroom will bring their scene to ATC and perform it on the same set used by our professional artists. Collectively, each classroom presents their own scene and they present a unique version of the play representing how it relates to their own lives. After performing their production at ATC for an audience of family and friends, they come back to the theatre the following week and see ATC’s professional performance of the same play and engage in a discussion with the professional artists about the play.
columbinus
written by Stephen Karam, PJ Paparelli,
Dramaturgy by Patricia Hersch, Conceived and Directed by PJ Paparelli
February 1, 2013 – March 10, 2013
