Load singers and rappers into a chamber of music. Squeeze young people into a conversation about guns. Trigger action.

 

Emerging from three years of interviews in communities nationwide affected by youth-involved shootings, The Ones is a choral/hip-hop musical about coming of age in an age of guns.

 

A choir gathers, imagining a world where young people don’t die. Two students search for the roots of a school shooting. As they – and the audience – become implicated in the search, the question moves from how did this happen, to what do we do now?
 

The Ones is a forum, a tool to invite communities to reflect and connect. The musical becomes the heart of a series of invitations for cast and audience engagement. A local cast performs the core music theatre work; local communities create thematically-linked events, classes, panels, and artistic responses in consultation with the creative team; audiences reflect, create, share stories, and mobilize during the show.