A year-and-half in the making, the play deals with violence.

“The play starts with a drama class that gets put in a lockdown,” said Grade 12 drama student Saba Ghahari. “It then follows the students on their journey through the lockdown and has inserts to honour the victims of the shootings at Ecole Polytechnique, Columbine High School, Dawson College and Virginia Tech.”

Drama teacher Suzanne Burchell came up with the idea for the play two years ago, when the school conducted a lockdown drill.

“It was only a drill, but it appalled me. It’s horrendous to think that we’ve come to this point,” she said. “This play puts out the message that you can’t just sit and let this happen, you must be part of the solution to stop the violence, so there’s also two scenes about bullying that show how horrific it is,” she added. “The message has to get out that we can all be proactive.”

Twelve students from grades nine to 12 started writing the play last year.

“For each lockdown in past school shootings, we had to research what happened to the people, what they studied, who their family members were, who their friends were and get into character,” said Ghahari. “Essentially, we had to learn to be the person.”

The research certainly paid off.

The cast performed the play recently at the Sears Drama Festival and picked up the Distinctive Merit for Ensemble Performance Award.

“Ensemble work is very difficult to do because you have to be in tune with all 13 people on the stage all the time,” said Burchell. “They worked incredibly hard and to get that award for that category is more than commendable.”

The cast also plans to perform the play in May for Orchard Park, its feeder schools and the community.

“Violence stops when we all take a stand,” said Ghahari.

Burchell believes in the power of adolescents.

“Sometimes people will label teenagers –they’re awesome, if you give them the right channel to operate in,” she said. “When the cast gets up to perform, they’re for real. They want their world to be a better world. I have never worked with a better cast or crew.”

Principal Marco Barzetti says he couldn’t be more proud of the production, the cast and crew and Burchell.

“This play is unique because it has been written and work-shopped by students over the past two years,” he said. “This group of students is tremendous. They are skill-based drama students, but more importantly, they care about issues of violence in their community,” he added. “They are fully committed to the play and the cause.”