Festival Preview: 26 Pebbles

TROUPE 439’S PRODUCTION

Director Mark Stutz is a firm believer that projects come to you when they’re supposed to. He discovered 26 Pebbles while browsing the shelves of the Drama Book Shop on a school field trip to New York. A staff member there recommended the script. “I read the back of it, and it seemed like it was worth reading,” Stutz said. “I didn’t know at that point it was going to become my life for the next year and a half.”

Once he made the decision to produce the show, Stutz discovered connections to the material everywhere. He realized he shared a mutual friend with the playwright. The aunt of one of his colleagues was a former teacher at Sandy Hook. And two cousins of Thespian senior and 26 Pebbles cast member Olivia Behr were third- and fifth-graders at the school at the time of the shooting. “The world was telling me to do this show,” Stutz said.

It was important to Stutz that his students share an immersive experience. He assigned every cast member the task of reporting back to the group about two of the 26 Sandy Hook victims: their backgrounds, hobbies, and families. “In our production, a wall of plaques comes down with the victims’ names on it,” Stutz said. “The cast is looking upstage at that point, and inevitably those actors find the victims they were closest to. It’s very emotional for them every time because, in their minds, they know those people intimately.”

Students also participated in Skype interviews with the teacher and student survivors and spoke with a grief counselor to understand post-traumatic stress. Stutz says Ulloa became “like the 14th member of the cast,” tweeting about the production and offering his support.

Cast members took seriously the responsibility of sharing Newtown’s story. “It’s very relevant to us today,” said Thespian senior Dan Stewart. “It’s not outside our world to be doing this, but the fact that we are portraying adults in this situation who have children that were affected — that’s probably the most challenging thing. Being able to comprehend or attempt to comprehend what they went through.”

Behr came to terms with the reality that she represented mothers like her cousin. “I had a bit of guilt in this process, thinking to myself, ‘Who am I to try to emulate the fear of a parent whose child was in this tragedy? How can I do this justice?’ I had a lot of self-doubt, a lot of reflection.”

Both students feel the extended time they’ve spent with the production has changed them. “I’ve never been able to perform, take a break for several months, and come back to the same show,” Stewart said. “Not that I didn’t give my all the first time, but I’ve grown as a person since then, and I feel I can bring new things to Nebraska with us. Just the other day, I was reading the script again, and I started crying. I was emotional about it before, but there is something that seemed so special to me that we could do this again.”

“With everything going on in our society, sometimes I sit at home at night and I’m scared thinking about the evil in this world,” Behr said. “These are things in the play we have to consider. Carrying that with me has been a burden at times, but overall the experience has been very rewarding because it’s helped me learn to cope with those fears.”

Stewart and Behr hope audiences leave the play with a better appreciation for the importance of conversation. “The show ends with a lot of questions and a lot of inspiration to talk about things people aren’t always comfortable talking about,” Stewart said.

“I feel this is a show you must see,” Behr said. “It’s so relevant, so impactful. It’s the epitome of how I feel theatre should function in today’s society.”