The first act of the play is set in a stereotypical , fictional American high school and follows the lives and struggles of eight teenage archetypes . These characters are not given names but labels , and the two outcast friends designated in the script as " Freak " and " Loner " are slowly driven to crime and madness by the bullying from their classmates . In the first scene of act two , these boys become Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold when the actors playing Freak and Loner , respectively , approach two tables with objects relating to the massacre and change into replicas of the clothing the perpetrators wore ; the perpetrators ' senior photos are projected on a screen behind them . The scenes following this are taken from the perpetrators ' videos and personal journals , illustrating the days approaching and including the shootings and the suspects ' suicides . The newly added act three has the other cast members become survivors and townspeople who reflect on the events , including the cover up of information surrounding the suspects . The play briefly touches on modern shootings such as the incidents at Aurora or Newtown . A few productions have included a brief scene discussing the story of the Columbine survivor who wrote to Mike Judge about " Wings of the Dope , " an episode of King of the Hill which she credited with enabling her to grieve a boy she never got to tell she loved , who turned out to be one of the perpetrators ( resulting in her being pressured to repress her grief )
Newtown
Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting
Columbinus