Miscast Theatre Company hopes its new play will initiate a conversation on gun violence

From Texas Public Radio:

The following story contains graphic audio descriptions that may not be suitable for children.

Seventeen minutes — the amount of time during which one can take a quick walk, do a quick workout, or watch a short video. It’s time that passes within a blink of an eye. But for Sheriff’s Deputy Andy Rubens, it’s literally life and death.

17 Minutes is a dramatic play that takes place in the aftermath of a school shooting.

On a recent January night, the Miscast Theatre’s cast and crew rehearsed the play, and it was heavy hitting from the start.

The first scene was an emotional interrogation of the main character, Rubens, just minutes after a shooting took place, and his response is in question.

Actor Alejandro Jimenez portrays Rubens, who struggles with his own complicity in the tragedy and seeks meaning in the wake of the shooting.

Courtesy photo / Miscast Theatre Company

Jimenez said the play is loosely based on the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas shooting in Parkland, Florida.

“That one directly correlates, because there was the officer on duty at that campus who stood outside of the building while the shooting was happening. And for us, that correlates, because Andy Rubens, my character — that’s the exact situation he was in for our show. [Rubens waited for] 17 minutes,” Jimenez explained.

“So really, I was able to kind of look into what was going on with that shooting and really apply that to my character, and just think about it from a new angle, in the sense of not only his culpability, but also just in how others view him as well.”

Jimenez and other actors were assigned to study various school shootings, including the 2022 Robb Elementary School shooting.

Miscast Theatre Company’ artistic director Ivan Ortega said the difficult preparation was necessary to bring depth to the characters.

“This piece was very hard, because we realized that this is not really about acting it but truly feeling it and being in the moment. And so basically picking the cast was just us seeing who had that potential to really get in their feelings and tell the story,” Ortega added.

Though the play is fictional, Jimenez said he relates to the play on various levels. “One, in the sense that I have a background working both in education and also in residential care for teenagers, and then also, in transparency, like struggles with mental health, which the play touches on,” he said.

Another exercise that helps the cast slip into their roles is “rolling in and rolling out” of their characters.

“We talked about early on the process that we were going to need a way to get actors to not get so wrapped up in the emotion of everything,” said Assistant Director Luke Stout. “Rolling in and rolling out and de-rolling was something that worked for me in college when I had to do intense stuff, and it seems like it’s had its effect on the actors, too.”

Jimenez credited the technique to keep him and other cast members from being overwhelmed with emotion.

“Just kind of taking a second to take a deep breath and remind ourselves that for the next hour and a half or so, we are thinking and looking at the world through the lens of Andy Rubens,” Jimenez said. “These are not our own thoughts. These are not our own actions. It’s such a healthy space in the sense that I am able to kind of just let that go and leave it on stage.”

Stout expected some people to make the assumption that 17 Minutes is a political statement.

“There’s one thing that the playwright Scott Organ said that I thought was really important. He says it’s something [along] the lines of: ‘Gun violence is apolitical. The death of these children is apolitical. The grief that these families are going through is apolitical,’” Stout explained.

“And so I don’t think our intention is to necessarily make this show a political statement, but … to, at the very least, spark a conversation about gun violence through empathizing with these characters and by seeing their story and how they’re dealing with it to get a conversation started,” he added.

The themes in the play may not be appropriate for younger audiences.

The Miscast Theatre’s production of 17 Minutes runs from Jan. 24 to Feb. 8 at the Palo Alto College Performing Arts Center at 1400 W. Villaret Blvd.

There will be special ASL (American Sign Language) performances, on Sun., Jan. 26 at 2 p.m.; Sat., Feb. 1 at 2 p.m.; and Sat, Feb. 8 at 7:30 p.m.

The play’s understudies will have their own nights on Sat., Jan. 25 at 2 p.m., Sat., Feb.1 at 7:30 p.m., and Sat., Feb. 8 at 2 p.m.

Ticket information is available here.

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