After the worst day of her life, Amanda’s world is torn upside down.
The once cheerful and bubbly nine-year-old doesn’t smile much these days. She has nightmares, angry outbursts and doesn’t want to play with her beloved toys anymore – stuffed penguin Jonah, American Girl Doll Molly and trusted Diary. Even a new weighted emotional support bunny doesn’t get any love from Amanda. She calls him “Ugly.”
Amanda’s bedroom is now a place of nightmares, as she processes the trauma from a school shooting.
That’s the plot of “Soft Target,” the latest play being staged at Detroit Public Theatre. It runs until Sunday. It takes place entirely in Amanda’s room, and the audience watches as her toys try to figure out what happened to their friend, and her mother, Jen, struggles to comfort and heal her.
“Soft Target” was penned by Los Angeles-based theater, film and TV writer Emily Kaczmarek and directed by New Yorker Jaki Bradley.
Cora Steiger, who plays Amanda, can partly relate to what her character is going through. Steiger is an Oxford resident, with the high school experiencing a mass shooting in 2021. While she had no family or friends at Oxford High School at the time, Steiger, 12, remembered how the community came together in the aftermath.
“I think we all did our very best to make sure that we all cared for each other,” she told BridgeDetroit.
Earlier this year, Steiger was in a production of “Mary Poppins” at Oxford High and became close with some of the high schoolers in the play. She used that experience to help get her into character as Amanda, Steiger said.
“That really helped me get into character for a lot of these emotional scenes,” she said. “I think that definitely helps me feel what Amanda is feeling a lot of the time.”
The ripple effects of trauma
Kaczmarek wrote the first draft of the play in 2018, which is the year the Parkland school shooting happened in Florida. She previously told BridgeDetroit that those kinds of tragedies often keep her up at night and she knew she wanted to write something about it from a unique perspective.
“Because the last thing I wanted was to write a sort of preachy ‘school shooting play,’” Kaczmarek said. “I really was thinking about how to center a child in an authentic way, and how to give her some agency and some power in the context of the play. I started to think, ‘Well, who would this child have power over?’ I started to think about her toys, and once I had the concept of the toys, it felt like I had a way to access the subject matter that would really disarm people and allow them to enter into the story in a surprising and almost playful way.”
In 2023, Kaczmarek had an industry presentation of “Soft Target” in New York and there were a number of theaters that were interested, she said. However, while some theaters hesitated at the subject matter, Detroit Public Theatre was committed to premiering the play. Company co-founder Sarah Clare Corporandy plays Jen in the production.
Meanwhile, Bradley became interested in directing the project after reading the script. She said she was in awe and respected the way Kaczmarek approached a difficult subject matter.
“I think she found a way into the material that has so much humanity and even some humor to help you access it,” Bradley said. “It is a really beautiful way into a really heart-wrenching, horrible topic. The fact that you’re accessing it through Amanda’s toys helps you sort of ease into it and feel comfortable engaging with it.”
Due to the heavy subject matter, the writer knew she wanted to bring Amanda’s toys to life to provide some comedic relief as well as examine the ripple effects of trauma.
“Amanda has been victimized by this horrible event, and then the toys are being victimized to a degree by Amanda,” Kaczmarek said. “And they’re all kind of grappling with her experience, but as the play goes on, they’re also grappling with their own experience. I really was drawn to the idea that maybe the play could operate on two levels in that way.”
One of the toys that has a difficult time adjusting to the new Amanda is Jonah the penguin, played by David Johnson III. He has been a part of Amanda’s life since she was born and often calls her his best friend. Jonah can’t imagine himself or his life without her at the center of it, Kacmarek said.
“Throughout the play, it’s this kind of delicate dance for him between optimism and hope and denial. And as the play goes on, he kind of has to take that apart,” she said.
It was also important for Kaczmarek to have the character of Jen and see how a traumatic event affects the parents as well, she said. Her point of view is one many audience members can readily relate to, Kaczmarek said.
“I wanted to get at the helplessness that I think a lot of parents feel in the aftermath of these events, and the absurdity of having to deal with something like this,” she said. “It’s such a senseless and horrific thing that you really don’t sign up for and then it happens all the time. I knew I wanted that perspective there of a compassionate, loving adult who is really doing her best, but she is flailing. She doesn’t know how to help Amanda.”
Tapping in, tapping out
Both Kaczmarek and Bradley praised the performance and professionalism of Steiger, and said she was the right actress to play Amanda. Kaczmarek said she’s a charming performer who asks good questions and is devoted to her character.
“Her monologue work is amazing, but also her scene work is just incredibly nuanced,” she said. “The adult actors were all just in awe of her.”
Since Steiger is young, Kaczmarek and Bradley made sure her mental health was a priority during rehearsals. The two did the same for 16-year-old Nya Mackenzie, who plays Amanda’s neighbor, Natalie. A Detroit Public Theatre patron who’s also a social worker became a mental health consultant for “Soft Target,” providing resources and making herself available to the cast and crew, Bradley said.
The director also has a “tap in, tap out” ritual with the cast before and after every show.
“Right before they do the show, they all tap hands with each other and they say, ‘Tap in.’ And then right after the show, they do the same thing, and they say, ‘Tap out,’” Bradley said. “It’s such a small ritual, but it’s something that I found really helpful in shows that are really difficult because it’s a way of being like, ‘We’re entering into this world together and we’re about to tell this story, including the parts that are really hard.’ And then when the show’s over, we’re leaving that story and going back to our lives.”
Steiger said the “tap in, tap out” method made it easier for her not to bring Amanda’s sadness and trauma into her own life. She also credits the cast, who made her feel comfortable doing those emotional scenes.
“We have such good connections with each other,” Steiger said. “We all have jokes and stuff, we all have fun backstage. And we’re so comfortable with each other that we automatically know what each other are feeling and we’re always there for each other. It’s just so amazing to be able to work with them.”
Steiger wants audience members to leave “Soft Target” feeling hopeful and that it’s a healing experience for those who have encountered gun violence.
“I hope they know that as long as you have each other and you have the courage, you can keep going on with your life, and that these experiences don’t have to define us,” she said. “They can shape us and help us heal.”