As school shootings mount, educators face the question of how to present gunfire on stage amid students\u2019 fears that their school could be next.<\/b>
\nSomerset Berkley Regional High in Massachusetts had already cast its spring musical, \u201cMiss Saigon,\u201d when the February shooting in Parkland, Fla., renewed the specter of gun violence in American schools.
Samuel Bianco, the choir director at the Somerset, Mass., school, where active-shooter drills have long been routine, considered how to handle the numerous guns called for in this wartime story. The show would go on, he decided, but the production would avoid realistic portrayals of guns by using props like white color guard rifles, commonly used by marching bands.
It was one way Mr. Bianco tried to stay true to the text but minimize what he called triggering images. To him, there was ultimately value in teaching students to connect to characters in tragic situations.
\u201cThese kids are practicing being empathetic and feeling other people\u2019s pain or pleasure through acting,\u201d he said. \u201cYou can\u2019t always avoid the evil in the world \u2014 and what are you going to do when it happens?\u201d
High schools and colleges across the country license shows from an enduring catalog of stage favorites. Firing a gun, whether into the air or at the heart of a young lover, is integral to a surprising number of them, including \u201cWest Side Story,\u201d \u201cLes Mis\u00e9rables\u201d and \u201cOklahoma!\u201d But as school shootings mount \u2014 more than 200 have occurred since the one in Newtown, Conn., in 2012 \u2014 educators face the question of how to portray gunfire on stage amid students\u2019 fears that their school could be next. While some teachers might avoid these plays altogether, many are turning the challenge of depicting gun violence into a learning opportunity.
\u201cTheater is a safe environment to talk about subjects that can be very difficult to discuss,\u201d said Douglas Berlon, the deputy executive director of the Educational Theatre Association, based in Cincinnati. Arts educators have seemed increasingly drawn to material, he added, \u201cthat will help their students and their community process these kinds of raw emotions.\u201d
According to Mr. Berlon, discussions about prop guns have grown on the association\u2019s online forum and at its national events over the past two years. The association counsels schools to tweak prop use, staging and sound effects as they see fit, but not to make unauthorized changes to a text, like cutting a death scene.
At Venice High School in Los Angeles, a starter pistol that fired blanks was used in \u201cWest Side Story,\u201d which ends with Chino killing Tony, then Maria waving the gun, desperately asking the others onstage, \u201cHow many bullets are left?\u201d
Guns designed to fire only blanks can be subject to complex firearms regulations that vary by state. Even debris discharged by blanks can cause fatal injury. Safety protocols around prop guns are determined by schools or their districts, and often include securing them so they are not mistaken for real weapons and never pointing them directly at someone or within close range.
Jesse Fabian, 15, who played Action in the musical, is the president of #NeverAgain Venice High School, a student group that he said has sent more than 400 handwritten letters to Congress urging action on gun control. Even in the context of a play, he was unsettled having a gun pointed at him, he said. \u201cIt\u2019s terrifying because although it\u2019s a prop, it looks so realistic.\u201d
Traci Thrasher, the director of the school\u2019s drama department, said that because she believes people have become so desensitized to gun violence, she wanted the play\u2019s use of a prop weapon to resonate in a visceral way. \u201cIt looks and sounds like a real gun,\u201d she said. \u201cIt\u2019s a tad bit jarring.\u201d
Still, J & M Special Effects, a leading supplier of theatrical weapons to Broadway and amateur productions, said schools seem to be moving away from using prop guns that closely resemble real ones.
Bohdan Bushell, a special effects coordinator for the company, noted that unrealistic prop weapons can often replace more authentic-looking ones with little harm to the play. \u201cThere are things that take us out of the story, and that\u2019s not always one of them.\u201d
For the arsenal needed in \u201cAssassins,\u201d Stephen Sondheim\u2019s musical about killers who have taken aim at presidents, a student-mounted production at Carleton College in Northfield, Minn., armed the cast with a mix of Nerf guns and more lifelike prop firearms, including a historical replica of a derringer. The characters whose assassination attempts were most successful used the most realistic props.
\u201cThere was an awareness of the delicate ways in which firearms need to be treated onstage before the Parkland shooting,\u201d said Alexandra Pozniak, a senior and one the show\u2019s producers. The attack only served as a reminder of why the theater group already had an extensive list of rules governing the use of prop weapons.
\u201cThe actors have been very, very careful,\u201d Ms. Pozniak said. \u201cThey want to make sure the audience and their fellow actors feel safe.\u201d
Not everyone agreed with the production\u2019s abundance of caution, which included not aiming even colorful Nerf guns toward the audience. (During the show\u2019s finale, the characters are meant to open fire from the stage.)
\u201cI understand why these rules are in place, obviously,\u201d said David Bellovin, 19, who played the foiled Nixon assassin Samuel Byck. \u201cBut I also think that there are certain moments, especially in theater, when the audience is not necessarily supposed to be comfortable.\u201d
Fishers High School in Fishers, Ind., had planned to present \u201cBullets Over Broadway,\u201d a musical adaptation of Woody Allen\u2019s gangster comedy. But when Jon Colby, a theater teacher there, stepped in to direct, he swapped it for the less-trigger-happy \u201cSeussical,\u201d based on the stories of Dr. Seuss. He even armed the hunters in that play with nets instead of guns.
\u201cTheater gives us the chance to take a break from reality,\u201d Mr. Colby said. Citing the grim contagion of school shootings since the Columbine attack in 1999, he added, \u201cI just didn\u2019t want to go there.\u201d
In areas of the country where real guns abound, there may be fewer concerns about using prop weapons. At Lone Peak High School in Highland, Utah, Jim Smith, a theater teacher, said, \u201cThere was really no feeling one way or the other\u201d about gunfire in the school\u2019s production of \u201cOklahoma!\u201d \u201cThe students knew it was a prop.\u201d
Mr. Smith opted for a historical replica paired with sound effects rather than having students pull the trigger on the gun, which fires blanks, because it gives off sparks. (Mr. Smith recalled a Utah student who died in 2008 from injuries after a blank was discharged from a gun to be used in a school play.)
Still, recent school shootings didn\u2019t register as cause for special sensitivity. \u201cIt\u2019s just the way the culture is here,\u201d Mr. Smith said of the predominantly Mormon farming community. \u201cThey would be more upset if we swore than if we used a gun.\u201d
At Somerset Berkley, which organized a walkout assembly in February to honor the Parkland victims, Mr. Bianco chose to restage the scene in which Kim\u2019s fianc\u00e9, Thuy, threatens her young son at gunpoint. Instead, the actor grabbed hold of the child (played by a 5-year-old) but pointed the prop \u2014 a squirt gun painted black \u2014 at Kim.
\u201cIt\u2019s important to the story that we use weapons,\u201d said Zack Almeida, 15, who played Thuy. \u201cBut it\u2019s not a toy, so we don\u2019t aim it at people or mess around with it.\u201d
Molly Sullivan, who alternated in the role of Kim, agreed that students should engage with plays like \u201cMiss Saigon\u201d as a way to address gun violence head-on. \u201cYou can\u2019t just run away from it and try not talking about it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

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