It is impossible to avoid — the real-life event that frames the play “26 Pebbles” is disturbing. Heartbreaking.
Which makes all the more remarkable the play’s uplifting message of human resilience and the ability to come together after an unspeakable tragedy — the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.
UC Merced’s Global Arts Studies Program will stage the one-act play, based on more than 60 interviews of Newtown community members by playwright Eric Ulloa. Performances are scheduled for 7:30 p.m. Friday, May 3 and 2 p.m. Sunday, May 5, at the Merced Multicultural Arts Center, 645 W. Main St. in downtown Merced.
Tickets are $10 and can be purchased via UC Merced Arts or at the arts center.
The December 2012 shooting killed 20 children and six members of the school staff. The gunman, who fatally shot his mother earlier that day, then took his own life.
In “26 Pebbles,” tragedy is the starting point. The play begins after the shootings, unspooling as a town with fewer than 13,000 residents struggles with confusion, loss and disbelief, then reels as the national media descends on them.
“The play is about how the community heals and moves forward,” said director Jenni Samuelson, a UC Merced lecturer. The cast are students in Samuelson’s Advanced Performative Storytelling class. Their interweaving monologues, enhanced with props and projections, drive the story forward.
“The characters speak their truths,” Samuelson said. “It's not that everyone agrees with each other. However, it is their truth, and we hope to honor that.”
