By Emily Wiley, Editor-in-Chief
Twenty years after the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Downtown Oklahoma City was bombed, a new production will open to honor the victims and heroes of that day.
This is the premiere of The 20th Anniversary Oklahoma City Bombing Project.
The show opens at 8 p.m. April 16 in Burg Theater in Kirkpatrick Fine Arts Center. The play will run at 8 p.m. on April 17-18 and 2 p.m. on April 19 in the Burg Theater in Kirkpatrick Auditorium.
The 20th Anniversary Oklahoma City Bombing Project uses interviews and historical records from the people who experienced the incident.
Several of the interviews were conducted by students in the cast of the show, as well as faculty members and the playwright, Steve Gilroy.
“I think that it was cool that the students conducted the interviews,” said Josh Robinson, web content coordinator for the university. “They are up there portraying these people who they have met and are probably sitting in the audience. I know that it is difficult because you want to do them justice.”
Robinson was asked by Dr. David Herendeen, professor of music and director of opera and music theater, to film the rehearsals and production of the play. Once the play is finished, the theater school will use the documentary as a recruitment and teaching tool.
“This is my first time doing something like this,” Robinson said. “I hope that I can do it justice because the play is just so beautiful and so emotional.”
The cast of the production visited the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum, 620 N. Harvey Ave.
The play also is promoted on the memorial’s website.
“I think that this play is so important for us as Oklahomans because it focuses on the people who overcame and who survived,” said Michelle Roselle, theater performance senior.
Roselle is the only cast member that is an Oklahoma native.
“There is something about us as people and the Oklahoma standard that makes us want to connect to events like this and want to learn about it. And for younger people who weren’t alive when this happened, they get to learn and have this experience. I am so proud to be in this production,” Roselle said.
The Oklahoma City bombing was on April 19, 1995 and was considered the largest domestic terrorist attack.
Timothy McVeigh parked a Ryder rental truck loaded with about 4,800 pounds of explosives in a drop-off zone situated just under the Murrah Building’s day care center.
At 9:02 a.m. the bomb detonated, killing 168 people and injuring 680 others. The blast destroyed or damaged 324 buildings within a 16-block radius, according to the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum website, oklahomacitynationalmemoral.org.
Editor’s note: Amy Fuhrman, Associate Editor, and Lauren Matheny, Lifestyles Editor are in this production.
Leave a Reply