Revival of play rekindles friction, too.

Byline: Anne Williams The Register-Guard

CORRECTION (ran 10/22/03): A quote from Joey Donoho, a student actor in Thurston High School's production of "Bang, Bang, You're Dead," was incorrect in an Oct. 16 article on Page A1. The quote should have read: "There are a lot of staff members who were here when that happened, and they've kind of showed it a little bit. It really makes some people uncomfortable.

SPRINGFIELD - Emotions at Thurston High School were still raw in spring 1999, when the school's theater department staged the public premiere of "Bang, Bang, You're Dead" at Eugene's Lord Leebrick Theatre.

William Mastrosimone's powerful one-act play drew heavily on Thurston's own deadly school shooting less than a year before, and some people felt it was too soon to show it here - especially using student actors from Thurston.

Now the theater department is resurrecting "Bang, Bang, You're Dead," and - despite efforts to downplay the obvious parallels between the play's fiction and Thurston's reality - it's generating similar criticism.

School administrators recently scrubbed plans for school-day performances, believing it unfair to expect all students to either attend or obtain parental permission to skip it. Instead, public performances are set for Friday and Saturday evenings.

"Although it's not wholly based on the shooting five years ago, it's hard to separate it, particularly in our own school because it happened here," said Interim Principal Doug Jantzi, who is new to Thurston this year.

On May 21, 1998, then-freshman Kip Kinkel opened fire in the school cafeteria, killing students Ben Walker and Mikael Nickolauson and wounding 25 others. He had killed his parents, Bill and Faith Kinkel, at home earlier.

While all the students who were on campus that day have moved on, plenty of their siblings and friends attend Thurston now. Administrators and counselors alike worried about the possible emotional responses to the play and the school's ability to deal with them.

"I got feedback on both sides," Jantzi said. "Some parents said definitely don't go there, we'll be upset if you do, and some said we should do it, and it was the same with staff. I heard both sides, and both equally passionate. So we erred on the safe side."

The decision rankled many students in the 24-member double cast and crew, who believe Mastrosimone's play is something every high school kid needs to see.

"A lot of people are closed-minded about the show because they think it's about the Thurston shooting," said senior Kris Hammett, who plays one of the five students who is killed and returns to haunt the conscience of the shooter, Josh.

But as he sees it, the play is really about the corrosive and potentially violent effects of taunting, ostracizing and rumor-mongering.

"It brings out all these issues," Hammett said. "It speaks to everyone. All these things that happen to Josh are things that happen to all of us at some point in our lives."

Department director Mike Fisher, who was on campus the day of the shooting, said it was former Principal Catherine Spencer's idea to bring back the play as a catalyst for discussion about the school's climate. The performances are in no way meant to rehash events or memorialize victims, he said.

"If you talk about this in terms of our shooting, there's really no good time to do this," he said. "But it's not about then, it's about now."

Immediately after the shooting, there was a perceptible change on campus, he said.

"This place was the most accepting, caring place you could imagine," he said. "People were nicer to each other, the cliqueiness disappeared."

By last year, though, the school was again "just another high school," he said, with all the usual teenage bad behavior.

Senior Rosie Doll, who plays one of Josh's victims, worries that the kids who need to see the play won't come to the evening performances. She believes there's far too much clannishness, harassment and mean-spiritedness on campus, and that students need to think about the consequences and talk about ways to change.

"There's just a lack of caring - people don't care about each other here," she said. "There's a lot of name-calling, a lot of people just being mean."

She and other actors will lead optional small-group discussions with audience members after both performances.

Springfield Fire Chief Dennis Murphy, who founded the Ribbon of Promise campaign to end school violence, will address the audience beforehand. He believes Thurston is the first school to stage "Bang, Bang, You're Dead" as a forum for discussion rather than a simple performance, and believes it could be a potent tool here and elsewhere in staving off violence.

"It's a very powerful, instructive way to deliver the message about bullying and harassment," he said, noting that studies have found that most school shooters have endured such treatment from their peers.

Joey Donoho, who plays Josh in the Saturday performance, said he's convinced that, for a majority of students, the play won't stir up the past, though it may - and should - stir emotions.

"None of us who are here were there, and I think that's kind of slipped people's minds," said Donoho, a junior. "There are a lot of staff members who were here when that happened, and they've kind of showed it a little bit. It really makes some people unforfeitable."

One of those is history and global studies teacher Gary Bowden, who raced into the cafeteria within seconds of the last gunshot.

"I've spent years trying to put this behind me," he said. "There are images that I have a hard time getting rid of, so the idea of dragging this all up again and stirring it all up is anathema to me."

While Mastrosimone weaved elements of other school shootings into "Bang, Bang, You're Dead," its connection to Thurston is the strongest. Josh, like Kinkel, urges his father to buy him a gun. Like Kinkel, he also kills his parents. Like Kinkel, he shoots up his school cafeteria.

"Every time this is performed around here it drags it up again and emphasizes that this is 'the shooting school,' " Bowden said. "This is about the Thurston shooting, so Thurston is the place where you don't show it."

But Yvonne Atteberry believes it's a good time to revisit the important issues raised by the play. She's the mother of shooting victim Ryan Atteberry, now a night custodian for the district, and Zach Atteberry, now a Thurston senior. She plans to attend, though she doesn't know if Zach, a drama student but not part of the cast, will join her.

"This has a lot to do with bullying, and how each of us is unique in our own way, and being tolerant," said Atteberry, who saw the play in 1999. "I think that's important."

"BANG, BANG, YOU'RE DEAD"

The play: Written after the 1998 Thurston shooting by Seattle-area playwright William Mastrosimone, the 40-minute play features a boy who has just shot and killed five students and his parents. The students come back to him that night in his jail cell as embodiments of his own guilt to ask why he did it and lead him back through his past. The play has been performed thousands of times at middle and high schools around the country, and was adapted into an Emmy-award-winning Showtime movie.

The performances: Shows begin at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday in the Thurston High School auditorium. Admission is free.

CAPTION(S):

Cast members from the Thurston High School production of "Bang, Bang, You're Dead" rehearse a scene in which victims of a high school shooter confront their assailant. William Mastrosimone's one-act play is strongly connected to Thurston's own deadly shooting in May 1998.