Like Mulaney, Loo seems interested in exploring how early exposure to safety measures that seem to offer precious little protection can scar a kid’s psyche for life. (Which is more expensive than the clear plastic backpacks the kids carry, for sure.) The principal is skeptical, but he convinces her that she has more to lose with parents who will blame her if a shooting happens than with gutting still more of the arts and sports budget to finance the “security” program. A John Hughesian quartet of high school students-a nerd, a jock, an overachiever, and an out-of-the-closet gay theater kid-are subjected to the training of a former military dude who’s selling his active-shooter survival “strategies” to schools. Those drills are the crux of Eric Reyes Loo’s This Is Only a Test, now in a world premiere with Broken Nose Theatre under Toma Tavares Langston’s direction. Through 3/12: Thu-Sat 7:30 PM, Sun 3 PM industry night Mon 2/28, 7:30 PM, understudy night Wed 3/9, 7:30 PM, Den Theatre, 1331 N. In the process, we’ve turned mass murder into something akin to a tragic accident or a natural disaster-horrible, yes, but really unavoidable-rather than deal with the root human and political causes of gun violence. But it took the cumulative effect of Columbine and Virginia Tech and Parkland and too many others for schools to start incorporating active-shooter drills as if they were on the same plane as fire and tornado drills. Sure, Brenda Spencer shooting up an elementary school in San Diego in 1979 with the excuse “I don’t like Mondays” got enough worldwide publicity to inspire a Boomtown Rats hit, and Laurie Dann’s murderous 1988 assault on Winnetka’s Hubbard Woods Elementary led to a book by former Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn and a made-for-TV movie starring Valerie Bertinelli as a thinly veiled Dann. ‘Street Smarts!’”)īittenbinder was making his mark during those more innocent pre-Columbine days when the national narrative (reinforced by milk cartons everywhere) was that strangers outside the school walls tossing kids into trunks of cars was the greatest criminal threat they faced, instead of (probably male) classmates with killing machines invading the educational sanctuary and wreaking havoc.
(“Time for ‘Street Smarts’ with Detective J.J. In his 2018 comedy special Kid Gorgeous, John Mulaney recounts the crime safety (or “Stranger Danger”) lectures delivered to him and his fellow classmates by former Chicago cop J.J. Sommelier Series (paid sponsored content).
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