columbinus is a play sparked by the April 1999 massacre at Columbine High School in Jefferson County, Colorado, probes the psychological warfare of alienation, hostility and social pressure that goes on in high schools across America.
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Created by the United States Theatre Project and written by Stephen Karam and PJ Paparelli. columbinus weaves together excerpts from discussions with parents, survivors and community leaders in Littleton as well as diaries and home video footage to bring to reveal what it refers to as "the dark recesses of American adolescence".
The first act of the play is set in a stereotypical, fictional American high school and follows the lives and struggles of eight teenage archetypes. These characters are not given names but labels, and the two outcast friends designated in the script as "Freak" and "Loner" are slowly driven to crime and madness by the bullying from their classmates. In act two, these boys become Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, in scenes taken from their videos and personal journals, illustrating the days approaching and including the shootings and the suspects' suicides. The other cast members become survivors and townspeople who reflect on the events.
The cast consists of five men and three women, including extensive doubling up with characters in brief roles as parents, teachers, guidance counselors, and other adults.
columbinus had its co-world premiere on March 8, 2005, at Round House Theatre in Silver Spring, Maryland (Jerry Whiddon, Producing Artistic Director, Ira Hillman, Managing Director), and then on May 6, 2005, at Perseverance Theatre in Juneau, Alaska (PJ Paparelli, Artistic Director, Jeffrey Herrmann, Producing Director), in conjunction with the United States Theatre Project.
The original cast was as follows:
columbinus had its New York permiere on May 22, 2006, at New York Theatre Workshop (Jim Nicola, Artistic Director; Lynn Moffat, Managing Director). The production was directed by PJ Paparelli.
The New York cast was as follows:
In fall 2009, Paparelli workshopped new text for the show, premiering a new version at Truman State University in Kirksville, Missouri in honor of the tenth anniversary of the Columbine shooting. The production was directed by Theatre Department Faculty member David Charles Goyette.
The cast of the Truman State University production was as follows:
The Chaos Ensemble, which is a small theater group formed of actors from Providence High School (North Carolina), debuted on December 17, 2009, with columbinus. They were the first high school to ever perform the edited piece. The choice to perform this controversial play paid off, as The Charlotte Observer named it the "Best Charlotte Show of 2009".
The cast was led by director James Yost, a teacher from the school who mainly works at Theater Charlotte. The cast was as follows:
The performances of Brandon Rafalson and Tanner Agle in the roles of Eric and Dylan, were named by the Matthews-Mint Hill Weekly at #2 on "Best Charlotte Acting Performances of all Time", and the Ensemble as a whole was noted by Lawrence Toppman as the "Revolution of High School Theater".
Despite its controversial and challenging content, the play has received generally positive reviews. When columbinus premiered in 2005 at the Round House Theatre, Peter Marks of the Washington Post called it, "An ambitious examination of the suburbanization of evil, directed with a surefire sense of theatricality by PJ Paparelli."
Additionally, columbinus received several Helen Hayes Award nominations including: