 Hello everybody. Thank you for coming. People will be struggling in. That's fine. This is a great opportunity for us to talk about something that we as journalists should and as just plain old human beings trying to understand what's happening around us in our very confused and crazy world should take this opportunity and try to ask as many honest questions as we can. So I encourage you to reach down deep inside and don't worry about being polite. We'll worry about that, David and I. We're very privileged to have with us two people that if there's anybody who can explain to us Columbine, there are two people sitting in front of you here that know this event probably better than anybody else in the entire country. I remember when I was a journalist in 1999. I'm still a journalist, but I was looking for the Wall Street Journal and at that time on April 20th, 1999, I had to make these calls because we talked in the office to our editors and to other reporters and none of us would really come up with how to cover the story. It was breaking about halfway across the country and we just didn't really know how to approach the subject because up until that time crime has been basically consigned to bad guys. Bad guys committed crimes and they came from bad neighborhoods and they lived in poverty, they had very poor education, they had drugs to deal with in that old culture and they had gang members to give them moral principles to live by. And that was more or less the type of crimes that we were used to covering. But suddenly crimes in Columbine switched to good guys and the good guys who were coming from good educations, from good economic backgrounds, coming from upright, moral, middle class families were committing these crimes. We didn't know how to cover it. I remember getting on the phone and saying to the people, to the families in Middleton and another part of Colorado, I'm sorry for calling you at this time, please. Because there's nobody else I can speak to. Nobody else is an expert. We don't really know what's happening in this country. You are the only ones who could shed some light for us. And some of them hung up on me and some of them tried to answer the questions. But what we have here in P.J. Papirelli, who's the co-author of Columbinus, a great play I saw it last night, I was really impressed. And we have Betty Scholes, who is the grandmother of a victim in Columbine, the aunt. I'm sorry, the aunt, excuse me, the aunt of a victim in Columbine, Isaiah Scholes. They lived this for the last 14 years. P.J. Papirelli has spent, he spent four years researching and reporting this as if he was a journalist in order to come up with the first two acts. And then after that he researched more. He knows the families inside and out in Colorado. And he has a great opportunity to pick his grade. He is by profession a director. He's involved with theater companies from Alaska to Washington. And he's produced a whole bunch of Shakespearean plays, Hamlet, 12th Night, much to do about nothing, on and on and on. And he hair. I'm sorry. And so I want to say, I want to open up to you, I want you to be as curious as possible for the next hour or so. It's too bad we don't have a whole day to talk about this, but I want to say a couple of things that crossed my mind as I was watching this great play last night. One is that I'm not given to hyperbole usually, because I'm a journalist, I have to low key everything. I thought, when I was watching the play yesterday, I thought of the book of revelations. Because of the prophetic element, the prophetic message that the book of revelations was about a chaotic time of evil. And I want to point out to you that a year ago, in July of 2012, when P.J., may I call you P.J.? Yes. You look so... You're becoming worse and worse. It's called exhausting. When P.J. was getting ready to research Act III of this three part play, I mean this three act play, he was getting ready to go to Colorado and he had canceled his trip, because on April 20th of last year, we all know what happened in a theater about 15 minutes away from Columbine, there was a mass shooting. We all know what that is. And that was last year. Fast forward to right now, this week, what happened this week? We all know what happened this week in the nation's capital. And I might surprise you, between July of last year and now, guess how many mass shootings there have been in this country? And by mass shootings, we define it as any event in which five or more people died or killed. Anybody want to make a guess? 66. No, not that many. 10. There have been 10 mass shootings in the United States since then and I'm not including the Boston Marathon bombing, because Boston Marathon bombing, as grisly as it was, only had three deaths, even though 264 people were injured. And so we're dealing with a play here that is very relevant to us. And we should ask at some point, P.J., what role, he's a playwright by profession, but at the same time he's a journalist. He's gotten into our world and he's created a new genre. It's almost like non-fiction writing, non-fiction writing to many people, this journalism. And so I want all of you to think about that in cold blood could have been another title for this because both pieces of work, both pieces of literary work are dealing with the same subject, which is the inexplicable inscrutable ability of man to commit the evil. And I think that there's lots of things here that we should talk about. And one final thing, Columbine has been probably studied more than any other mass shooting in this country and we thank people like P.J. and Betty for that because they have really contributed to that understanding over the last 14 years. And if there is a solution, we have come up with all kinds of solutions. We've looked at the Second Amendment, we've looked at gun control, we've looked at social economic, we've looked at teenage angst and alienation, we've looked at a lot of stuff, we've looked at video games, Hollywood, media violence. And there is some of those things we have no control over. But there is something that we have control over. And the answer lies in Columbine. It's too bad that the Browns, who are the parents of a survivor of Columbine, couldn't make it today because their son was really someone that has a very interesting twist to the Columbine story. Those of you who are not familiar with it, I'm going to tell you very briefly, I don't want to spoil it for your play, I'll tell you very briefly, but their son Brooks Brown was targeted by the two shooters a year before Columbine happened. And he, if anybody in that school, he should have been killed first. But in a very ironic twist and in a sort of a moral lesson to this play, he escapes death. The two shooters looking in the face and say, get out of here before they started their killing spree. And the answer and how he escaped this mass shooting is really very, very intriguing. I think if we delve more into that story and hear the people to talk to you about it, we will really try to understand how we can avoid shootings like this as best as we can. I'm not making any promises. There's probably got to be another shooting soon. I don't think that's a mistake. I'm a journalist, but I want to open up the floor to everybody here. I'm glad you're here. Please open up your thinking caps and fire away. Let me start off asking you a question and then we'll begin. This is a great piece of journalism. Can you explain to us how you've mentioned two things? You said this is not a play, but this is a theatrical discussion. What is a theatrical discussion? First of all, I just want to thank you, Joe, for having me and it's just a privilege being here with this wonderful woman in. And I hope you will ask questions of us, of our experience, which is very, very different. I'm an outsider, just like you. I am an outsider. I did not experience what happened in Littleton 14 years ago, but Betty did and it hit home. And so our perspectives are obviously very, very different and that's a part of journalism's perspective, right? It's whose perspective are you telling? How as a journalist you are responsible for examining an event that happens to us and what is true, right? That's the biggest question. What is actually true? There's a truth that I have as an outsider from my experience and there's a very different truth that Betty has as an insider. And so the impetus for the play, I mentioned that because the journalism was really at the heart of why we even did what we did. It was 2002, the Iraq War had just been, had just taken off and there were a group of artists that were in D.C. that were very rattled about what, the way we got into the war and the reasons that American people were sort of being told. And we had an agenda, but it was sort of interesting to say, well, what if we got rid of that agenda and saying the war is wrong and just kind of looking at this particular event and how we got in it and trying to weigh both sides? And can you create a piece of right increase in journalism, a piece of theater that presents both sides in dialogue with each other and then let the audience go away and sort of, you know, whatever camp they're on, be able to process it and feel that it's important to them instead of dismiss it and say, well, that's propaganda for one side and propaganda for the other. Which is I think what a journalist should be doing is trying to tell the truth in the best way he or she can by presenting multiple perspectives of something. So typically, as a theater artist, you're coming in and you're filtering an experience through your experience and I don't think there's any way to be 100% objective. I mean, obviously, there's things we chose to put in and not put in. But what we tried to continually to return to is are there enough perspectives? Are the perspectives balanced? And that was actually a really, really difficult thing, both in journalism as well as writing and display. Because you might be drawn and connected to one particular side or one particular point of view and feel like that hits home and that's the one I want to think about. But we continually had to remind ourselves, no, we couldn't do that. We had to, well, we had our own opinions, right? Our responsibility was to try to arrange as many opinions as we can without making the place or come to something that you're, you know, you can't follow a story as to what the group is. So that was our immediate intention. So we started with wanting to write about the Iraq War and the issue with the Iraq War for us is we couldn't find one story at the heart of it. There were 16 different stories at the heart of it. There wasn't one event other than getting into the war, but it's that, you know, it became, how do we tell one story because the play, you know, at the heart of it has to be a story. There has to be one, I think, one event that everything's anchored or drawn to. So we got frustrated, to be honest. We didn't feel like we could do it well and we abandoned it and we were sitting all around. There's four of us sitting around going, what are other American issues that just, you know, don't have a clear answer and want to be talked about? And immediately I said, you know, this thing that happened at combat was only a couple of years after. It just continues to haunt me that how could two teenagers get to the place where they, you know, in a very, very premeditated way do the things that they did. Nothing about Columbine was accidental. You know, they didn't just decide to do it a week before. It was a year before. And their motivations were who they killed. While there were people that they didn't know, there was definitely clear motivations on targeting the school itself. You know, if someone's frustrated and angry and wants to commit violence, there's so many places to do that. They chose their school as the target, which is not random. It was very specific. And some of the deaths and the way that people died, which the play reveals, were very specific. So there was nothing random about Columbine. The only thing that didn't go the way they had planned it to go was actually they were planning to blow up the school. They had placed propane bombs and support pillars of the cafeteria, which the library sits above the cafeteria. And the idea was at the moment where the most students were eating lunch or studying in the library, they'd blow up the support pillars and kill upwards of 900 to 1,000 people. And because they wired the bombs wrong, really a random thing that happened was why they didn't go off. And so then they resorted to using the guns that they had brought really to shoot people as they exited the school. Anybody who had survived the explosion. And that didn't happen, thank God. That didn't happen. I mean, it was horrible what happened to Columbine, but it was so much bigger. And all of that, again, had been premeditated. So we switched to this idea of doing, studying Columbine because at the heart of it was this question. Two questions, really. What happened in Littleton? What happened? Why would, what drive these two boys to do that? And the bigger question, is there something going on in adolescence today that is causing a certain amount of disconnection? Not necessarily causing school shootings because that's, in some ways, if you're going to try to solve that and Joe alluded to this, you're going to chase a dragon and never catch. It's not about how do we prevent school shooting. It's really about why these things are happening. Why do people choose a violent way of releasing something that's inside them, a series of disconnections, and a built-up, when you have a lack of communication and there's this build-up that's happening and then it gets released in a certain way, whether that's one gun, whether that's a mass shooting, whether that's a bomb, whether that's abuse, whether there's so many different ways that we're violent in this society. I think the question is, is there something in today's adolescence that you're going out, today's adolescence that are causing young people to feel this sense of disconnection and loneliness? So there's really two questions in the heart of Columbines. So anyway, that's what we did. That's what we were after. That's what we wanted to try to solve. What happened in Littleton? Why did they do it? We will never know. It went down with that. They took that. So what they have left us, their videos, and this is interesting from a journalistic point of view, those videos which have been, only some of the families have seen them and a few reporters, and they have been locked up forever because they were very worried about Copycat. And when you read the transcripts or for those who've seen the videos that I've spoken with, they are that version of the truth that the boys wanted the world to see, that they wanted to be famous. That was their version of what happened, their version of why they were doing it. That has to sit alongside of what they probably do not want you to see, which are the things that, what was really motivating their fears, their insecurities there, and then their illness, because they were both ill people. None of this is to excuse and evil act is to understand all the things that go into that. So, like I said, I don't think I'll ever really know why Combine happened. Most survivors say, it's a perfect storm, five or six, seven different things that didn't happen all the same time, more so why it couldn't have been prevented because of all these different things. But I will say, if any one of those things might have been followed through on, yes, we probably would have stopped it from happening. But it doesn't explain to you necessarily why, why, why, why. That's a tough question. So, I think as a journalist, you try to present as many opinions of that as you can, and then have an audience really leave that kind of taking it for themselves. So, that was the impetus why we wrote it and what we were hoping to achieve. Could I ask, I'm David Daurin, the Director of Artistic Programs for Art Samerson, and part of, we were programming Column Minus, and this is part of a whole series of things. And I want to ask Betty a question. From that standpoint, picking up right where you left off, this responsibility of the journalist to present multiple points of view. A, how has that impacted your experience of what you, I mean, it's very personal experience that's playing out very publicly, probably continues to. You continue to talk about this all over the place. How has that sense that we have to keep opening the many truths manifested in your attempt to tell your truth? Well, I believe the impact is that most of the media that I have came into contact. And the way we perceive the media is not always in their favor. I refuse to do interviews because I have to feel the person and how you approach me and what history you have and doing a story or projecting the truth. I have found, in my experience, that I can tell like, PJ, I can tell within a 10 minute period if I'm going to even continue to talk to you. There is only been one reporter that was able to get the inside story for me because I automatic distrust. When I see you have a history of not telling the truth, you tell what someone wants to hear and not the need of the people to hear the whole truth and what caused the incident. I believe that the news is written today to satisfy the majority of people what they want to hear, not what they should. I entrust the media to tell the truth, to get the inside and tell the whole story as it went. One thing I believe is the media has a responsibility. Even before Coloban, I feel that they had a responsibility to give me the truth to tell the stories as it happened. Don't doctor the truth to make everybody feel good. You have to be able to stand there and give the people what they deserve, what they expect from you. The majority doing the Coloban incident, they didn't want to fit in. They wanted this big picture of what the world want to hear. That's why it took so long for the people to get the truth. I decided I'm not going to do any interviews, only the people I trust. If I talk to you within 10 minutes, I can tell your personality, I can tell your spirit, I can tell if it's going to benefit the young. Young people's able, as you're being young, is able to see if somebody has been honest with them, how you approach that, the causes. If they catch you in a lie from the beginning, why should they listen to anything else you have to say? If they know that you are avoiding the truth, why should they even pay attention to the next story? I think the media has the biggest impact on the young today, because they're watching what's happening in the world. And my belief is all the killers and the shootings is happening for this person because the media have built them up as being glorified. They will go down being remembered as what they did, you know, the bad. And instead of the victims and the solution. So that's the biggest impact I see today. And with the pay, it has made one of the biggest impact that I was willing and able and excited to get involved with. It tells a lot of people's stories, not only Columbine. It tells how kids are being treated or whatever. And I could see everybody, everybody fit into one of the groups. And the play, it tells a life story. It don't only tell my story or Isaiah's story or other kids' story. It tells something that the world could relate to. That's why I'm here today and that I'm able to talk to you guys. The play, it impacts. And this is the first truthful play or anything written that was so true, close to the truth that you could sit there and say, oh yes, you know, sometimes it gets hard to look, but it's the truth. So this play impacted me so well, you know, I got excited about sharing again. So that's why I'm here. I got excited about if I can help someone I'm here. So you know, you guys have such a job to do and right today I depend on the news to give me the facts. I need facts. My mind, and I know so many kids are so smart, they can see through all the sugarcones of stories that are going to approach somebody and approach them correctly. You know what I'm saying? Don't pre-judge somebody if you're going to step up and want to give their life stories on the news. You have to be real for yourself. I feel your failure if you go into somebody pretending because I can tell somebody right off if they're going through this pretense stage or whatever. They're trying to impress somebody. You have to put yourself into that situation and then you know where to go from that. I think it's interesting that Betty hit it right out of the nose. There are people who just didn't talk to us years ago. We started in 2002. Because of some of the experiences I had I actually never approached Betty or her family years ago because I was so I didn't know what I was doing as a journalist. That I would offend. It was such a sensitive thing. It was just years later some experience failing quite a bit to be able to talk to Betty and share and listen to the stories. I think one thing I learned on this experience is it's all about trust and it's all about some of the best stories I have on Columbine. I just actually failed in some ways because in a journalist you want the best story to put in the paper, right? The best stories that I have on Columbine none of them are in the play because the families didn't want them in and I respected that. It was not about getting the best story. Of course you want to be able to share that but it's up to the family at the end of the day what they want to share and they're telling me so that they can understand context and picture but they trusted that that I was only going to put what they wanted to have in the play and so that's a weird thing. To be honest it's a very weird thing as a journalist or a playwright because you want that juicy whatever it is but you have to kind of think of the whole because those choices if you make those choices by putting that sensational thing in there you're burning a bridge you could burn a bridge inside of the community so trust was and I know we failed at that by the way we approached somebody maybe too soon at something or it took a long time so I think that's the difference between pure journalism because you have to report on an event immediately versus what we were trying to do which took years I think I don't know if you know but the play used to be just a two act play and it was finished in 2004 so it took almost three years 2005 it took about three years to write the play and mainly because you're not going to go out there and get your story and then leave and then a wonderful thing happens by getting to know people and really seeing a truth beyond what they're going to initially tell you because there's always the first interview and it's like this is how I want you to perceive me I'm going to tell you that give you the quote because I don't trust you so if people are used to talking to the media they go here's your sound bite this happened quite a bit police unfortunately Columbine this is the first this is what I want you to take from it so it really takes the third the fourth or fifth interview for people to get disarmed and eventually start to share something and then say I don't want you to write that but I want you to understand it because they ultimately would hope that you're going to represent me in a fair way so it's time consuming it's just really time consuming to do what we were trying to do and some things we were successful at we never got a chance to talk to the families of the two shooters in fact the Harris's have only I think they've only talked to the Mousers they've only talked to one because I don't know I've tried to approach their families the families of the two shooters because I really feel like I should forgive them and the families was hurting because they lost a child I put myself as I'm asking you guys to put yourself in that position and it's all within a couple of minutes if you how you approach somebody I could tell in 10 minutes that I trusted PJ and after everybody knew that I trusted PJ it was wonderful because some friends of mine told me about him and they love him and they say you love him just give him a chance to talk but you have to realize I have been approached by so many people and their first impression is I'm not talking to these people you're not going to tell the truth you're not going to tell the world of truth if I thought you was going to portray the truth in the matter I would tell it to you I'm not going to take any more time or anything but the best person gets the story you approach the person as another human being and you will get everything that you need and I think it would be more beneficial to the world that all the misstatements and everything else that's been printed I was willing to tell him stories and everything that I was feeling I opened up to him and all the other families because he's that type of person it's the whole approach and I'm inviting to be here because you guys are the future and what is going to happen I've been contacted by so many other families that's been in the other tragedies and spoke to so many people I believe in God up most and they know that part of me and I'm very spiritual in that matter so I'll sit up and talk to you at two or three at four o'clock in the morning and I see that you have an open heart to them you'll be able to get the story you'll be able to portray it and you'll be able to help the next young person that's what I truly believe you guys are the start of the end and I believe with the way everything is portrayed nobody will want to go out here and glorify themselves by killing up a lot of kids and hurting the world if they can get they can get the glory in other ways you know we have to put that to them there's other ways to get fame and fortune and whatever you know and I believe that's the problem right now with all the shooters not enough attention the media gives them too much attention you know instead of looking at the victims and seeing the life and the film portrays the Columbine film portrays that but your film it's told a lot of the truth and that's what the kids need is the truth they need the young people even the older people they even start after seeing the play and everything start giving more respect to the next person because everybody don't even realize the truth some I mean right now you guys approach me saying could you give me the whole truth there's so much truth that you guys haven't heard because I haven't found anybody to trust to tell the truth and the other families have tried to give me and tell their story of the other shootings and everything but until I find the right person I'm trying to talk him into some other things Betty when you see yourself in the play now is that is that a true story of you the most truthful that it has been in any of the media stories it's interesting with all the interviews and all the hours of lying and talking I avoided the media I did some interviews I did some massive interviews I met with the president I did all that some of the media I refused to talk to how long did you talk to PJ? it took 10 minutes for me to trust him and he could get any kind of story he wants for me because I truly trust him you know I trust that he would have my interest I trust him that he would tell the story so it could benefit somebody else you know so yeah I wouldn't do anything you know any story any place, any time and I love him so I love his heart and a couple more of the guys I met today I mean it's like oh my god you know there's still people out here that truly care and we can tell automatic if you care or if you sympathize or you're out here just trying to get a story to make up your own anyway so we do know we do know the impact we can tell automatic it takes a couple of minutes to even be around you guys and I can tell you am I going to take this time I don't got to the point now I don't even have time for this so it's how you approach someone and how you know your your history of or even you know sitting down to conference or any matter you in you know people are truly truly blessed if they can discern and I believe after 14 years I have good discern so the impact of me here is the biggest impact in my opinion that you can have doing a tragedy I believe that you guys give the first picture you guys give what the ending of the whole story you know from the first words you give is what it's going to end up then you can either make it or break it we write the first draft of history first historians on the scene we have absolutely no background we come to you you want to take some questions let's say we should go with let's talk in front go ahead identify yourself then in your theatre education major I actually have two questions both for you I am also a character in a documentary theatre play and I do not trust anyone except the playwright to do that play would you trust P.J. to hand column bias that script in that play over to other actors other directors and producers or yes would and then what if she said no it's too late it's too late I let someone else do it they wanted to get the permission of our room and I said no they didn't hear me they didn't hear my story it's hard because I think in some ways I haven't gone to I only went to one other two other productions of this play that I did not direct one was in my hometown Stephen Karam and I co-wrote the first act we both are from Scranton the university there decided to do it so we thought we should go it was one of the most horrific experiences I've ever had in the theatre this is my first play I haven't written one before this it was so so nervous because the directing of the play the way that you direct the actors the way that because I had been in all the interviews and I really knew it was to me as a playwright going where you want a piece of fiction a piece of fiction that you've imagined you want your other artists to kind of take their liberties and go with this I had the complete opposite feeling I was like I hope to God that somebody wouldn't come to see somebody do anything wrong or try to do something wrong it's just words it's their words and so it's how you interpret and how the director and the actor interpret that it's very easy to to swing any one of those things to the point where it's way out of context and it becomes I'll call the arms, anything so that was such a terrifying experience I was like I never wanted the families to see it see I told PJ you do whatever you want to do how you want to portray me because that trust issue you know even if he would make mistakes that's understandable because we all make mistakes but like that trust stepping into an agreement is what gonna cause completed or the what alright complete the job you go after or fail at be successful at that or fail and I would feel the same way if I just had like five minutes and got three quotes from Betty I don't think I actually do it be an entirely different character right I mean it took us talking and eating talking and eating and talking and to just get to know each other on both ends and I think that led to the piece being a little more well rounded this is actually a little tangential to the topic but I worked on a play for many years on another horrific event the People's Temple in Jonestown with the survivors of Jonestown and we one of the more known survivors she's the most popular book on the topic at the time I think still does she came to us and said I want to be in the play I'm gonna sell you the rights to my book everyone else came saying thank you for listening and we listened for hours and hours and hours some people have more than 70 hours of interview on tape and that's just what was on tape and so when you talk about that first moment of coming correct or not that person's story is nowhere in the play she's still offended about that because she is the sort of official spokesperson but it was because her approach to the project also didn't come correct in a way it was I will sell you my official version and that's what you can use so it does go in both directions when you're starting you just said it if you at the beginning if that trust is firm and if that trust is true then you've completed your anxieties about it at that point everybody go but it has to start from we started together in the right place in the right way and now we go and what really backs me up is somebody comes and offers you value of your life story I have had so many offers to do books and movies and everything but it's not really and hard it's not that at all I wouldn't accept I wouldn't even accept an assignment or anything if that's all they thought of me is accepting money so when you approach people don't just think money is going to work for everything because you can't buy love with money you can't buy the personal feelings and especially like me all you want is the truth to get out maybe it helps somebody that's my goal in life and I pray that everybody would understand that you know it's the approach you seem to really be burning with a question hello I'm Zach I'm a senior political science and screenwriting major I wanted to something you were talking about before but it was the idea of responsible coverage and I wanted to ask about that because I saw this piece a while ago by this British journalist and comedian who basically made the case that these shootings are happening more and more frequently unfortunately and the responsible thing to do would be basically do no coverage of the shooters ever the responsible thing to do would be don't release the names, don't release the faces don't do any of that but there's also the other end of the spectrum which is well people want to know this stuff and if the people do know this stuff it wouldn't help us treat the problem if we know what kind of what these people have been suffering and what led them down this path so this is I think it sort of speaks specifically to what you were talking about earlier but just for all of you is there a middle ground or should we not be covering these shooters at all or what's the responsible thing to do that's a pretty tough question you're being asked whether or not the story should be okay okay but I have an answer for that I feel like the people should know everything but when a shooting happens is what I'm saying everybody, the only people you see is the shooter and their story instead of telling getting the information out there and putting it back what I'm saying putting it up there of the victims and what the families more so on them then I think some of the glorification might go away because on a TV or newspaper all you see is the shooter is the one who did the crime so I think the emphasis should be on moral on prevention and that would spray them a long way it's my opinion I think it's hard when a tragedy hits I mean you have a community that's in shock I mean my god like Littleton I mean you're in a community that's in shock and so you're trying to find the balance of are people ready are can they reveal what certain amount of truth is going to be able to be revealed in the immediate moments I don't think it took years and my god five to really seven years after Columbine for major amounts of truth to come out because people were keeping things because they were so worried about lawsuits I mean and so I mean when we're talking about the shooters yes of course there needs to be a middle ground sensational there's a thing about for me it's like what's going to get a rise out of my audience I know the things that will go you know what I mean and draw me in that way versus a more long term draw in which is about balance you know what I mean in building the story carefully you know unfortunately journalism has come into what can grab my attention right and not trusting they're not building a society where we can build the blocks of balance and build a story that's more complicated and more layered I used to read the Washington Post stories around Watergate just look at the Washington Post stories around Watergate 30 40 years ago versus what's in the paper now and it's so interesting how things are the stories are laid out and we're not going to journal so many journals not all of them so many journals just don't trust that we're an intelligent society and that we can balance those things so we go for an emotional reaction instead of stimulating emotion and intellect at the same time but somebody like me like the Boston Marathon I was sitting there and said I want to hear more about that baby I don't want to hear about them you know I was sitting there I was saying I want to know about the kids if you can some kids was there waiting on their parents I want to hear about them I was upset about not hearing their condition and all that that's what I be focused on you know and I believe there's a lot more like me but to give back to the trust issue without the trust with the group of people like the Columbine families you're not going to get very bored you know you only got told what they even imagined the truth took years to come out when it could have somebody a great reporter could have came and got the full story alright can I ask you about something so my neighborhood my neighbor was the family in the marathon who lost their son and I went out the next morning and a young journalist on the street waiting for somebody to come out I was on my way to work and she asked me for a comment on the family and I didn't feel I had anywhere to comment on the family so I said no she followed me for most of a block and then finally she said where's the school maybe I can talk to the teachers but like in that moment I didn't tell her I didn't know but I also felt I understand what she's trying to she's trying to get that story out but this feels like so not the time to get that story out morning after is it? I understand that because it was oh my god it was like 500 reporters in the front yard after Columbine morning of story acting like kids acting like food and it was one reporter one reporter came up to say how your family is doing I said we're making it through the last we're being strong why don't you come in she got to cover me with Martin Luther King Junior 3rd Martin Luther King 3rd Abernathy and she has pictures we gave her the whole family story she got I think she did a book or something I lost contact but I gave her all rights to because I liked her she was true to heart how is your family doing you know instead of flashing pictures of what happened and all that how's the family doing first of all that was her approach so she was a events with me so she could get the stories and it's the first approach I'm telling you like he said it was personal you came up the reporters to act you but if you sit there and be quiet instead of rushing somebody somebody gonna see oh my god they're sympathizing or whatever for an example that's the one that I go up and maybe I needed a hug or something that's the reporter I go up and talk to that's why I shone away from so many interviews you know because that you want a story it's people here it's lives it's things to be told it's truth so you can tell like I said 5-10 minutes into an interview you can tell if you're gonna stop talking Joe has the field changed in your time I'm sorry we'll get back out here in a second so in this whole notion a thing that's happened in the theater is that we see more and more and more theater that is documentary journalism theater and in some ways the balance has switched news has become more entertainment it seems in many ways and theater has become more journalism and is that something that you've been feeling from your side of it is that something I'm seeing from my theater chairs? No print is just going out the door print has been the main format of journalism schools telling learning how to tell stories but now we have video presentations you can't really graduate just in print you have to graduate in multimedia so you've got documentaries and you've got new formats you've got next week I'm going to a comic a comic seminar comics are used to tell stories there are journalism comics and there are people like PJ who has sort of married the two entertainment and journalism what I saw last night was journalism except for the first play the first act which was fictionalized but the first act was sort of a pre-see the background that you needed in order to be able to understand the events in the second and third act which was all journalism so basically what I saw last night was a journalistic play if you can call it that so yeah there is a huge emphasis on entertainment because we just spend tons and tons of money on entertainment more than even gasoline and so journalists are really have this burden to be entertaining and in many ways that is the reason that we come to you for those nuggets I'm just dying to ask PJ but I won't maybe one of you what those interesting really interesting stories were that he found anonymously at Littleton that he can't tell but I'm just dying to find out he'll never tell you will never tell me can I answer your question sometimes as being a victim sometimes we just want to talk you know somebody we have a million people to talk but not really we can talk at a lot of people when we're naked we find it hard to talk to a lot of people like I talk to PJ and he listen and you can trust him and he gets the inside story and most people want the truth come out and when you can talk at somebody you don't even know if they're going to tell the truth so if you talk to somebody and they can feel it and they just want to tell their story and that's when they relax and open up to you from a person of you so many questions I know we'll keep our answers brief I'm telling myself because I'm in caffeine here hi thank you so much for being here that you are so willing to share your story so open me I'm just wondering if you've ever faced any kind of criticism from family members who don't feel that it's right to be sharing the story so open me actually the caffeine families we have came together as a family they're my extended family so anything I want to assure them they would love it they don't care they trust me and that's when a trust factor comes I can tell their kids story I can tell their story and you can print it and they will be happy because it came from the heart we have to trust each other we have built that trust between among us that we can tell somebody else's story without them being present and they won't get mad good you got that point out so yeah at privilege you have to know what to share and what not to share with PJ I share but he knows the whole story with a lot of us but it's a privilege you know and if I think it's going to help somebody I'm going to tell it that's my whole purpose if you're telling a story and it's not going to help anybody or relate to my story I think that's a good question because can I put this to you you probably know what happened in Lexington High School many do you know this story Lexington High School most of the tragedy is now somebody contact me I'm not the one to run my mouth all the time I'm there to pray with them I'm there to talk them through that you know someone being there like I said they open the air they are calling me or something I'd be happy to go there you know I don't want the media I'm not going there for the media just you know some people do that but me personally I'll sneak in or out whatever because I true and hard want to be there for that person because I don't went through that and I will share my experiences I mean I'll be there for them to talk and I can hear and if I could say anything you told me a very I thought was a funny story about Aurora because Aurora is so close to Betty what Aurora happened you know I went down there they did a memorial a makeshift memorial right by the theater so close to Betty's house and you said people asked you are you Betty Schultz who's that woman because Betty wanted to just be there to be with the people and I wanted to you know just embrace because a hug can help someone you know knowing somebody there to have been through that or tell them how you know to start thinking because a lot of people minds are straight off or to be there to help them through that you know I wanted to be there personally on TV and if I had saw the right reporter or somebody I would invite them in so they could have somebody to talk to tell their story to but me you know true and hard if they feel like that they're going to tell everything and how it happened and how they're feeling and not to be there to block what they're saying and how the story goes your way the way you think it should go and it's not the right way because everybody out here anyway could tell that you're making up things and it's not true and I don't even say I'm true so why even bother that's the what I got out of everything that's why I stopped doing interviews I do rail pass on the Lexington question do I want to get back to that sorry Joe you had a question on that one well no Lexington was a good example it was basically do you know what Lexington, what happened in Lexington there was a high school student who saw the play in the summer somewhere up here in Boston and she wanted to produce that play at her school Lexington high school she was a junior there at the time I think this was about 2011 so that's two years ago and she was stopped she had gone through the whole she had done a lot of weeks of work producing the play her name was Emma Emma Feinberg if I remember correctly sorry Emma it's not going to happen and Emma was upset she objected and that argument between her and the school actually spread to the rest of the Boston community and it went on the ACLU got involved it went on WBUR you know what WBUR is it's the affiliate of NPR here and we used a lot of media including Boston Globe did stories on it and there was a professor a drama professor from Boston University that stepped out of the limelight and offered to put on the play offered to help Emma put on the play with the help of a local theater company and it went on but it was an example of how people are afraid of this event now if you were a parent of Lexington high school you would probably be very worried about your children being victims of another Columbine in Lexington so there is that topical element that you quickly alluded to there's also foul language you know if I use that language in the classroom I would be fired but or suspended and it's also very R rated material so there's a lot of there's a lot of concerns but at the same time you have to wait against what we're talking about today and I had these concerns when I was thinking about whether I should get involved with this event or not and my concerns were quickly washed away but because of people like PJ if you see his play it is very uplifting it is very positive it is very educational it will make you it will probably make the average person I'm not talking about the 10% of people who will need medication not definitely those people but for the average person for 87% of the population you will come away feeling really really strongly that this thing should never happen certainly by not your hand could I say something could I say something did you tell them about the reaction of a high school student in Chicago I went to Chicago with PJ the play was there and I was honored enough to go to intercity schools and they had the experience of doing their own version of the play and the impact it made on them that's why I'm so excited about this being brought here at Boston because the impact it made on intercity kids they was thinking they were talking to me they had such insight on the way you do things wrong what makes them react wrong it made such impact on these kids they said it wasn't any help for them and they were sitting there and we just had conversations and I loved it I loved the impact it made on these young people they still contact me which I love that I love it it's interesting because in these high schools all of the high schools are in low income neighborhoods and the gang the gang violence is in every one of these high schools so theoretically we should never do a play about violence in a high school where you have gangs because it opens the conversation up and the kids are talking to each other the adults in the room yes they might be saying some follow words but they're talking they're actually talking and you're getting it out and the irony of this play is that in the intercity environment the impact that the play just sparks conversation the real thing is that what Betty is saying the conversation that happened you start to get that out the misperceptions and things that you think about me across the room and why I hate you and why that starts to get out which is what's the pressure cooker that leads to violence is because you're not communicating the irony of a place like Lexington or some other communities where the play's been banned it's so ridiculous that's the complete opposite it's a middle class suburban environment that's where the play you think would be done where there's not really a danger of violence it's just ridiculous but in the play I'm not going to tell you the play because some haven't saw it but everybody everybody can relate to part of the play this is the exciting part about it everybody can relate to something in the play and that's the exciting part about it the kids can relate they can see themselves part of the play it's about life itself and it's great being young and everything I was excited because some of the kids still call me Facebook and all that it's exciting because they got an insight there's more like me there's more kids going through what I'm going to because you have to realize a lot of kids don't have people they go to at home they have to have something to relate to and I think this is a great thing that they can actually relate to this oh there's a lot of people out here that's going through the same thing oh I can put that in the play what I'm going through so I'm excited about the play because it's how it impacted those students like PJ did he don't like for me to say I don't like this it made a great impact it's great they're thinking in a different direction we're probably one more alright somebody from your class PJ let's see you want to go ahead hi buddy you say that you can pretty much pick a part of person in 10 minutes and talk to them see what their intentions are and trust them you guys had to do a lot of soul searching within these families within the media and other people and I guess within yourselves too over the past 14 years now what did you guys have to put together in your minds when it came to evaluating these people yourselves your emotions intentions everything what had to come together make you the way that you are today I feel that the person approached me and I don't care if you don't like me I don't care if you hate me I don't care but come to me right come to me and tell me these things tell me how you feel you can yell at me and you might be my best friend tomorrow tell me how you feel and let us work out the differences tell me if you think I'm ugly you don't like me because I'm black which have happened one guy is my best friend now he came to me I don't like you because you you know I'm black I'm African American and that's alright because I'm going to talk to you I'm going to approach you and I'm going to get you to like me because I love you no matter how you approach me it don't matter but I like to know the true person in other words I like to know the true person you don't have to like me to do a thing together to get successful into a matter you don't have to like me approach me in the right way because I can tell anyway so that's the secret of people like me you have to approach me correctly and if I'm doing something wrong tell me about it come up with us at me and we're going to correct it you know maybe I correct myself but that's honestly you know well I really I knew that we needed all day to talk about it I just knew it because I can see it in your faces and I really appreciate your presence and your sharing with us we have I certainly have learned a lot and if I would do cover call of mine today I would take my side a little bit just so that you can talk to me because you probably would have been one of the people who hung up on me I never call Benny by the way I call them but thank you so much it was a great play I encourage everybody to go see this because I wish I saw the play before I covered the event for the series and the months of coverage and it was very informational it's very thoughtful very well done and go ahead yeah before you go there are many more questions we probably don't have time to take them all even formally at HowRound.com which is where HowRound TV and Theatre Commons this event has been streamed in it's sitting there on the blog and the comment stream there is a great place to leave questions and we'll direct them to Betty and to PJ and we'll get you answers that way so if you don't get your question into the room today then put it on HowRound.com Do you know how to spell it? H-O-W-L-R-O-U-N-B dot com and that's the Center for Theatre Commons for those of you who are interested in this stuff whether from the journalism side or from the theatre side we just added another screening of a great documentary called Truth and Translation and it's a piece that is a yeah for the same reasons it has the same kind of power in this very intersection it's a piece that Global Arts Corp made to document their piece called Truth and Translation which is a play that they did created a play based on the translators of the Truth and Recognition Commission in South Africa and so the play is the attempt to get at the truth of what happened in dismantling apartheid and then the play goes on the road and they take it to Rwanda they take it to Belfast and the actors in that company then start running into all of these other conflict zones and the way that conflicts aren't the same and the way that they as actors are changed by coming into contact with other people's truth and the way that their ability to be objective about their own truth starts to fall apart so it's a really extraordinary documentary it's only one more time Saturday night at 7.30 in the screening room and the filmmakers are there so if you're interested in this intersection that's another great conversation starter and another place to ask questions about this area David, PJ, Eddie thanks so much yeah thank you Eddie is also talking on a panel across the street on race and class disparities in the medius treatment of gun violence so that panel is hot that panel is definitely hot