Creation Amidst the Chaos

A bustling dining hall was not the place Aaliyah Warrington expected to find inspiration for her first full-length play, but creativity never comes on schedule.

It was Feb.14, 2018 and the school shooting in Parkland, Fla. was a breaking story. As she and her friends leaned in around a phone to watch a video of one of the survivors, Warrington was struck by the surreality of it all.

“We just didn’t know how to process it. So we were just like, that really sucks, and we maybe had a discussion about it. And then we moved on. And then I remember going home that night and still feeling affected by that video. So I wrote a poem based on it,” recalled Warrington, Theater Studies major at Ithaca College.

Warrington wrote the first scene of her first full-length play, “Gather Ye Children,” the following day. However, a mix of anxiety and dread regarding the subject of school shootings took over, and the play would go unwritten for almost two years. However, Warrington was not finished.

In the wake of the coronavirus shutdowns, Warrington said she felt that there was finally a space for her budding play to come to life.

“There was a pandemic and everyone was at home—I remember that March, thinking that this is the first March in like a decade where there’s been no school shootings and I thought, ‘Maybe I can write this now!” she explained.

On the Virtual Stage

“Gather Ye Children,” now a full-length play written and produced in quarantine, will make its world premiere on Ithaca College’s virtual stage Oct. 31 via Zoom. The show focuses on a group of six students who find themselves hosting a town meeting a week after a deadly shooting at their high school. The students attempt to grapple with the trauma that has ruined their mental states and find who is to blame for their suffering.

IC first-year student Jackson Goad is making his college theater debut virtually in the role of Michael, the high school’s class president. While Goad admits that live performances via Zoom are not the optimal setting, he’s optimistic.

“I just think it’s kind of symbolic of the times, you know? I mean, in a normal production you’ve got your obstacles—your props that won’t work, a failed set design concept, knowing it’s just not going to run through. I think this is the definition of experimental,” said Goad. “When you get to see a live play you can leave it in the theater. This is something that’s going to be in your home. And I think that that speaks a lot to one of the positive aspects that doing this virtually brings to light.”

A Collaborative Effort

Beyond the very different way the play will strike emotionally given its virtual setting, Warrington said that the online rehearsal space gave her a unique opportunity to further develop her characters with the actors before opening night.

One huge example of this collaborative effort occurred when junior Will DeVary, playing Sam, found a “clue” for his character within the text. DeVary, steeped in traditional Shakespeare training, said he is very text-based and grammar-focused.

“[Warrington] had a very specific way of denoting [Sam’s speech impediment] throughout the text,” explained DeVary. “And so I was keeping a keen eye on that, making sure that was consistent for me. And then I noticed that there was one moment where a word had been repeated twice. And I thought that was so interesting! So I sat down and figured this was obviously based on the context. This is a very different impediment than what I thought–It was a wonderful clue for me as an actor!”

Every once in awhile a mistake becomes a blessing. In this case, the duplicate word was actually a small typo. Instead of deleting the error, Warrington was inspired by DeVary’s analysis and they collaboratively added moments of repetition to Sam’s diction throughout the script.

“I’ve had a lot of opportunities to adjust my script and help clarify some things for them. When they come to me and they’re like ‘I have this thought about my dad—can that be in there?’ I can say ‘This line about your dad is in here now, because you’re right!” said Warrington.  “Let’s put it on the page. I have that ability.”