Vertigo bring Rage Back to Manchester, 15 April

Following the success of Mysterious Skin and Christmas Sorority Massacre, Vertigo Theatre Productions staging a newly revised version of their original play RAGE by Craig Hepworth and Adele Stanhope.

It’s a normal day, in a normal American town at a normal American high school, but as the students sit in class a fellow student opens fire on the school killing and injuring many of his classmates. In the immediate aftermath several of the students are on lockdown in one classroom as the police sweep the vast campus, it’s not long before the teens, all from different social cliques in the school begin to challenge each other on the reasons the shooting happened and the bullying which they all believe led to the shooter carrying out the terrifying attack.

The play first opened in 2009, this new version looks at the links between bullying/social exclusion and campus shootings that seem to plague the USA as well as looking at other issues that play a part in the loss of so many young lives. How far can you push someone before they finally snap?

Harassment and bullying have been linked to 75% of school-shooting incidents, a terrifyingly high number. Whilst this is not the case for all shootings RAGE looks at these specifically and examines what is going wrong in schools and why nobody is talking to the kids themselves and listening to what they have to say.

At each performance, money will be raised for anti bullying charities and the cast and crew are doing a series of pictures of videos to be shared around social media speaking out against bullying.

On the 16th April, the performance will feature a minutes' silence to marking the anniversary of the Columbine High School Shooting. And on the final night the anniversary of the Virginia Tech Massacre will be highlighted.

The cast features Richard Allen and David Edward Lock (both from Mysterious Skin) as well as Heather Errington, Celine Constantinides, Natasha Horn, Kyle Martin, Julia Walsh and Conor Hanifin.

RAGE is at the Three Minute Theatre, Manchester from 15 – 19 April.