Pleasance Courtyard
Four stars
Girls may just want to have fun in Alice Stanley Jr’s new play, but for Ava and Parker, there is a lot more drama going on elsewhere to distract them. Holed up in Parker’s bedroom, and alternating between physics text books and the golden glow of their mobile phones and the social media whirl beyond, the two teenagers are coming to terms with an attempted shooting at their high school. No-one died, unlike a neighbouring school where a bunch of kids were killed, but now THEY are getting all the likes on Instagram, and Ava, at least, feels left out of the online chat enough to want to make a statement of her own.
The everyday tragedy of school shootings that has blighted the world over is brought to life in Riley Rose Critchlow’s production with the sort of commonplace teen dream sass patented by Ryan Murphy . This is led by a pair of fearless performances from Rachael DeBoer as a more bookish Parker and Shaylaren Hilton as an attention seeking Ava.
Stanley Jr draws from her own experience as a US school teacher, and her studies of how teenage girls converse is likely pretty accurate. Critchlow’s production is supported here by the Gun Control Network and the youth-led March for Our Lives, formed after the 2018 Parkland, Florida shooting, when 17 people were killed.
Despite the seriousness of her subject matter, Stanley Jr steers a fine line between irreverent gallows humour and the life changing consequences of the shootings. As Ava and Parker learn to hold on to each other for dear life, the result is a whip smart study of adolescence, friendship and survival in the face of tragedy.
The Herald, August 7th 2026
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