Actor. Playwright. New Yorker. Lefty.
Vince Gatton
On April 10, 2023, a mass shooting occurred in my hometown of Louisville, Kentucky -- just a few blocks away from the site of another mass shooting in 1989. These horrors have become so common and so normalized that there have now been two of them in the same few blocks of the same street within my living memory.
As it happens, I've written several plays focusing on one such (entirely fictional) incident. In response to this happening (again) in Louisville, I've decided to make this anthology of the short plays available to download for free for a limited time. (All performance rights reserved, though; email me about that if you're interested.) I hope for us to see past the lists of names and grasp the far-reaching repercussions of these events -- how they reverberate across time and geography, affecting countless lives in unexpected ways.
The Thing That Happened
A seemingly normal day at the office gets a shocking twist. The Thing That Happened takes a sideways look at the event by exploring the stories along its margins – moments that touch directly or indirectly on what occurred on that one terrible day. Hopping around in time, place, and genre, these six funny, scary, sweet and sad short stories look at the ripple effects of violence and the unseen threads that connect us all.
A companion piece to the full-length You Have Earned Bonus Stars.