The play Bang Bang

BANG BANG, YOU'RE DEAD

The play Bang Bang, You're dead is an amazing play of self realization for the main character, Josh, as well as for the audience. I first heard about this play when the movie, Bang Bang (You're Dead); was televised on a local movie station. I had seen previews for it, and felt that it would be a very good movie. At the time, I did not realize that it was based off a play.

When I sat down to watch the movie, my father was at work, my mother was cleaning, my brother was watching cartoons, and I had just gotten home from band practice at school. I was seventeen at the time, I believe. Throughout the movie, I realized that Trevor and I were very similar, being as we were picked on in high school. I didn't have it nearly as bad as he did, but I felt as if I could relate to his character. Many things in the movie brought tears to my eyes, as I slowly realized that this was a movie that should be played in every middle school throughout America.

At the end of the movie, I found myself crying, and I realized that people at my school did not realize that the way they acted towards our local outcasts took a toll on their emotions. When the movie showed the last lines of Josh, a character in the play that the movie was based upon, I found myself writing down who I could get together to put on this play at my high school, and who I would have to talk to about doing the play at the school.

Later that night, I had my Mother sit down and watch the movie with me. She said she would give me any help that I needed to accomplish my goal of making my school aware of the things that they were doing, and what the consequences would be for everyone if something like that happened at our school.

I went online to http://www.bangbangyouredead.com and went to the script. I printed it off, and read it that night. The next day at school I began rounding up friends, and having friends round up people who they thought would be interested in the play. By then end of the day, I had enough people who wanted to do the play. We came together and decided some times to practice this play, and who would play what part. We wanted to make sure that we could do what needed to be done to get this play going. We practiced for about two weeks, and then we approached the principal of our school. I was a senior that year, and I was the one who was to direct, star, and take care of everything having to do with the play. So my cast and I set up a meeting asking if we could practice after school, and possibly put on the play at the school. He told us that we would need a teacher who would stay after school with us. We said okay, and we found a teacher to help us out. At the time we were putting on the musical Grease in which most of my cast, including myself were in. The music teacher, and head of that play said she would over-see us. We were well on our way to doing this play.

Throughout this play, we lost about six of our original cast members because of them getting frustrated, and one getting expelled from our school. We practiced and practiced for well over six months due to our school system. The teachers jerked us around for months, saying we could do this, then we couldn't. My cast and I had finally had enough. I went to my church, The First Presbyterian Church in London, Ohio, and asked Reverend Johnson if we could present the play at the church. Myself, and about three others were members of this church, so he said he would present it to the board. One member of that board was the father of another girl that was in this play. I later got a call saying that we could perform the play, and to set up a date with his secretary. So we had a place to perform, and finally had a performance date.

By this time, our whole school knew about the play. Mr. Frank had lent us a coffin for our use in the play and our issues of violence teacher, thanks to my informative ways, showed the film to her class, and it was quite the buzz around the school. We hung up flyers, and even had a commercial playing on our weekly news show, so of course we were very confident about everything. However, there were problems that started to arise. Some of the more popular individuals at our school started saying that it scared them that I was in the play, playing a killer, because they believed that I would make the play become a reality. I was a good student, I was nice to everyone, the teachers liked me, I was in band, I was a cheerleader, and I was playing Cha-Cha in the school musical. This however, had no baring on the play or what I was like because I liked the color black and shopped at Hot Topic and had pink hair.

So, the time came for us to put on this magnificent play. The pressure was on. We walked onto the stage, and were ready to start the play. We looked at one another, almost disappointed that our first night only brought about thirty people, and one teacher. But we put on the play as if there were a hundred or more people there. At the end of the play, I stood up and spoke about the message that we meant to send, and how important our message was that afternoon. My mother then came up and spoke about it. Everyone came up afterwards, and told us how great a message and play it was, and they hoped more people would show up the next day.

The next day came, and not nearly as people had showed up, but our performance was still at our best. Something significant was that the two most popular people of my senior class had come to the play. The male had a reputation of putting people down, especially people like me. The female was a little bit more tactful, but she still had her flaws, like everyone does. At the end of the play, my cast came up and gave me flowers. They spoke of how hard I had worked to make this work, and how important the each believed that it was. We felt disappointed at the little groups of people who had shown up, but confident that we still sent out our message.

That Monday, one day after our last performance, the two seniors came up to me, separately that day. The female told me that it was wonderful, and it had a good message. The male came up to me, and said the same thing, but added that he was sorry for teasing me throughout our school years. The rest of that year, the teasing and degrading in our school slowed down, and seemed to not be as extreme. It seemed that there was a new found wisdom in our school.

This year, 2003 - 2004 school year, however, it seems as if my old high school is up to it's same old tricks again. Teasing and degrading, driving our outcasts insane. Although I have graduated, and moved on, I plan to go back to my old town and try to organize this play again for the Summer of 2004. This time, in hopes, that more people will be able to get our message. Now it's just a matter of time to see if we can accomplish our goals.

BANG BANG You're Dead cast pictures

Sarah Fisher