‘Columbinus’ opens tonight

With school shootings on the minds of today’s youths, Cal Lutheran University students are presenting a play sparked by the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in Colorado.

“Columbinus” will run at 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, Nov. 8, 9,10, 15, 16 and 17, and 2 p.m. Sun., Nov. 18 in Preus- Brandt Forum, 135 Chapel Lane on CLU’s Thousand Oaks campus.

The director and actors, plus faculty members from CLU’s psychology and criminal justice departments, will take part in informal discussions with the audience following the shows.

The 2005 drama by Stephen Kram and PJ Paparelli weaves together police evidence, excerpts from the shooters’ journals and interviews with parents, survivors and community leaders to depict the day of the shooting and the aftermath.

The show looks at adolescent archetypes and draws on nationwide interviews with students.

Although the Columbine shooting happened nearly 20 years ago, before some of the cast and crew were born, the play feels current, director Brett Elliott said.

“It could not feel more immediate. It feels like it was ripped from today’s headlines,” said Elliott, associate artistic director of the professional Kingsmen Shakespeare Company. “It references the past, but it is living in the present.”

Students involved in “Columbinus” watched documentaries on the tragedy, researched the shooters’ mental health problems and learned how the shooting changed high school culture.

Audience members are advised that the intense production features hate speech and graphic descriptions of violence.

Cast members are Clayton Currie, Jordan Erickson, Jonathan Irwin, Victoria Karr, Amber Marroquin, Mahyar Mirzazadeh, Gabrielle Reublin and Jacob White.

The CLU production has an original score by Christopher Hoag that incorporates covers of pop music from the late 1990s along with video projections.

Admission is $10. Get tickets at CalLutheran.edu/theater or at the door. For more information, call (805) 493-3452.