THE SECOND BEST SCHOOL SHOOTING to Make Edinburgh Fringe Debut
Alice Stanley Jr.'s dark comedy is produced by Matthew Lillard and Adam McKay for the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
THE SECOND BEST SCHOOL SHOOTING, a new play by Alice Stanley Jr., will premiere at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
The production follows two teenage best friends as they attempt to navigate life after surviving a school shooting. Their experience becomes further complicated when another, higher-profile tragedy occurs nearby, drawing public attention away from their own community and forcing them to confront questions of visibility, grief, and identity.
Written by Stanley Jr., a former public school teacher, the play explores how young people process fear, trauma, and uncertainty. Through dark comedy and satire, it examines the normalization of gun violence in the United States and the ways in which tragedy can become filtered through media narratives and public perception.
The production has been developed with input from school shooting survivors and in collaboration with March for Our Lives, the student-led organization founded by survivors of the 2018 Parkland school shooting.
Stanley Jr. said, “School shootings have become so horrific to talk about, it's somehow easier to laugh about them first. As a teacher I noticed the way the media and adults talked about the issue was starkly different than the way our actual youth experienced it.”
They continued, “I've developed this piece with hundreds of young people all over the country to capture their raw, terrified, and-against all odds-hilarious perspectives. ‘Thoughts and prayers' are no longer, and have never been, sufficient. We hope every performance of this play makes young people feel seen and inspires audiences to take action.”
The production is produced by Jessica Green Harrison, Matthew Lillard, and Academy Award-winning filmmaker Adam McKay. Stanley Jr.'s previous credits include Baby Wants Candy and Moxie.
Blending comedy with more serious themes, THE SECOND BEST SCHOOL SHOOTING explores friendship, resilience, and adolescence while examining the emotional impact of living in a society where mass shootings have become a recurring reality. Through the perspectives of its young characters, the play seeks to create space for conversation about grief, survival, and the experiences of a generation shaped by the threat of gun violence.
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