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>> STUDENTS: May we join together. To embrace life. The beauty and the pain. To comprehend
the magnitude of this act of violence. Leave here with a reneweed sense of peace. Of hope
and serenity. And celebrate humanity's ability. To be selfless courageous and compassionate.
Changed forever. I am changed forever, we are forever changed.
>> NARRATOR: It is the dead of winter in Oklahoma. While snow blankets The Oklahoma City National
Memorial. Inside the museum.
>> ARCHIVE WORKER: All of the objects that we have here and documents help tell the story.
>> NARRATOR: These college students uncover history.
>> ARCHIVE WORKER: Some of the victims' personal items.
>> NARRATOR: They are University of Central Oklahoma students. Theatre, music, and dance
majors. Selected to b e involved in a special project. Tell the story of the Oklahoma City
Bombing.
>> STUDENT: It was the very first thing in the box and I just read it and my mind was
blown. I just want to mark it all down as copy.
>> NARRATOR: Hayley Thompson, a theatre communication professor heads up the project.
>> If my students are 18, that mean they were 3 when this happened. Between the ages of
three and seven here. And I wondered what they had remembered. If these students don't
know the stories, ten they're forgetting and thats not a good thing. I want to change that.
>> NARRATOR: Change that for people.
>> STUDENT: Were they upstairs?...
>> NARRATOR: Like Alana Murray.
>> ALANA: When the Oklahoma City bombing happened I was fives years old. I don't remember a
thing from it. It was worlds away.
>> I thought it would be an amazing experience. I didn't know what kind of experience.
>> NARRATOR: Its an interdisciplinary experience that Thompson designed to trigger creative
and critical thinking skills among the students.
>> The project begins with research. The students dig through the archives at the Oklahoma City
National Memorial and Museum. Through the artifacts, they learn about the victims, survivors,
and their families.
>> HAYLEY: They are copying materials, prose, poetry, and interviews. They're looking at
artwork so they can understand other people's interpretations of their feelings and what
they've been through. They were really taking time to let everything soak in and get the
right amount information. Where we were before this all happened and where we are today.
>> STUDENT: I'm just overwhelmed, I don't know where to start looking, you know? We
don't know what direction we want to go with either.
>> I wish we can talk before, someone can say they want to do something on a couple....split
it in three parts. Do you want to focus on the before, the piece before the storm, the
actual storm, or do you want to focus on the rebirth of this country.
>> HAYLEY: Ok, we're going to brainstorm for a minute.
>> NARRATOR: Days after exploring the archives, the group meets again.
>> HAYLEY: What do you want the audience to leave with?
>> NARRATOR: Hayley Thompson poses questions.
>> STUDENT: Changed, they should feel changed, from everything they're experiencing and what
happened.
>> NARRATOR: They must craft a script, but first, the students must agree on a mission
statement.
>> HAYLEY: You're going to come up with a sentence that you think embodies what we're
trying to accomplish here.
>> ANGELA: We began thinking about it and reflecting. We first started thinking about
how upset we were about it and how we couldn't believe that some person can do this. We figured
that we were on the wrong track. that's not what we should be reflecting on. Not reflect
on all the pain, all the suffering but reflect more on what it has turned into the and the
joy that Oklahoma City now has as a state. A sentence really hit me was changed forever,
forever changing because its not over. The bombing happened, its over, but we're still
forever changing within time and everything we have in front of us.
>> HAYLEY: At about week six, we actually have a script. Which is a big relief for everybody.
>> NARRATOR: The script uses passages from letters and journals written by survivors
and victims' families
>> ACTOR: I don't hear any noise, but I can feel the force, the air carrying me.
>> NARRATOR: Each actor helps weave the story of the Oklahoma City bombing.
>> ACTOR: Scared, frozen, in disbelief. It looks like all the elements of someone's everyday
life run in a blender.
>> ACTRESS: I still get chills when I recall the sound. At 9:02, I thought I was dead.
No wait, I was alive. What happened? Where is this black smoke coming from? What was
that rolling sound? Where did this four feet of rubble come from? Where is the door? Wasn't
there a wall here?
>> ACTRESS: I parked my car, grabbed my first aid kit from the trunk with both hands and
I ran the rest of the way. At first, I didn't notice all of the damage from the federal
building or the other buildings in the area. Not until I crossed the street.
>> NARRATOR: The performance is a challenge. The content is heavy. It blends both acting,
music theatre, and dancing.
>> HAYLEY: Do you guys have a 9:03 dance? Is that where you all at? Let me see where
you are because that's kind of where we are.
>> The first month, I'd say was very trying because the students weren't used to each
others work styles or art types and all of us think differently. YOu have all of these
different types of artists and they all have an idea of what they think that this needs
to look like. I thinkk also that they expected me to give them a script. Just give me a script.
I don't know how many times I heard them say they'd say, 'tell me what we're doing...'
That's not what the process was about. The process was about them creating what they
felt needed to happen based on that mission statement.
NARRATOR: For Timothy Burgess, the mission statement Changed Forever resonates in this
music.
>> He composed original music for the project. Angela Landsdown and Lindley Baker wrote the
lyrics.
>> LINDLEY BAKER: I know for me, I'm so used to getting a script, or getting a score, and
there you go. You have all of the instructions laid out in front of you. And, with this,
we've had so much freedom to be creative that it's overwhelming at first.
>> TIMOTHY BURGESS: This was a original composure called "The Things We Hang On Fences". Its
inspired by the idea of beauty and simplicity and the small things that people have taken
to the Memorial and hung on fences there. The Idea of the gestures and kindness that
people have in giving those gifts and hanging those things and saying, "we will always remember".
>> NARRATOR: On this day, some of the students visit the memorial grounds to remember.
>> SARAH: The loss of anyone is something that anyone can identify with. Just because
we were so little when this happened, we're familiar with loss the same way.
>> ALANA: When I came the first time, there was sadness, but you didn't feel connected
to it. Now when I go back and look at it, read these stories, and I see these names.
I really think about who they were and the stories behind them and the loved ones they
lost. So you almost feel as if the spirits are there around you, so, its truly touching.
>> NARRATOR: The spirit of a young woman is the part that Alana Murray portrays in the
productions.
>> STUDENT PERFORMING: It terrifies me, there are time I wake up in the middle of the night
and its like you're right there next to me, whispering something that I don't know what
you're saying. I walk around the house, I can smell you, and it's always the same.
>> It's always you...
>> ALANA: I represent the spirit of the person that is gone. The feeling that they are still
there, just so close to you that they can't quite touch you, but you know that they are
there. I'm the representation of that spirit.
>> It was really spiritual almost. I felt guided with my movements and guided throughout.
>> I felt good about portraying the pain, the people, and portraying the wife.
>> HAYLEY: Everybody has to breathe at the same rate.
>> NARRATOR: Hayley Thompson believes this breathing exercise will help bond the actors
and dancers.
>> HAYLEY: And once when the breath is the same, we will start at the very beginning
with horror, shock, fear, worry. So we're belly breathing?. Everybody has to breath
at the same time. Actors, you better build your lines and listen to each other.
>> The goal is that they are listening and feeling that other person's breath. Having
them breathing at the same time and knowing that they're breathing at the same time and
then we throw another little wrench in there. Somebody has to say a line, so they have to
listen to that line, know when their next line is, and still be breathing at the same
rate as everybody else. So it made them pay a little more attention to how the other people
are connected in this performance.
>> NARRATOR: The 14 students have developed a strong connection to each other and the
roles they play.
>> STUDENT PERFORMER: I knew that this child of mine would see better and brighter days....
>> and then the moment left me and my heart begin to break. Somehow I knew, that this
beautiful child of mine had been....
>> lost.
>> NARRATOR: They deliver a powerful first performance in front of an audience at The
Pegasus Theatre.
>> STUDENT PERFORMER: She's been gone for one year nine months and 20 days. I find that
I love her more now than ever. I see her everyday in the face of a 10 year old boy. He somehow
keeps me closer to her. I hope and I try to do the same for him.
>> NARRATOR: Mason Pain feels an even deeper connection to the part he plays. After meeting
some of the victims and their families. He portrays Lyle Cousins whose wife died in the
bombing.
>> MASON: I was thinking about this day and what it would be like and to meet you. One
of the main things I wanted to say was thank you very much for sharing your story. The
way that you handled that situation with so much faith has really inspired me to live
my life in a different light. I've been going through some things in my life with my mom
being diagnosed with breast cancer. This was as we were going through this play. Some of
the things that you said about your faith and...
>> LYLE: After you go through something like this, you have more insight to help people.
You want people to understand what happened and why it happened and how people handled
it. That's part of the biggest most important thing is looking at the people that made it
through. It's great to see that people can use your story to make it through something.
>> NARRATOR: The production has transformed these young lives. The students who were once
strangers now confide in each other about their hopes and fears. About life and death.
>> ALANA: There's a part where I think you talk about losing your wife. Well, right now
my best friend's mom is dying and her son is my best friend. So, every time I hear it,
I'm just reliving the moment.
>> Silence......Are you ok?
>> yes
>> We've been delving so deeply into lives that don't belong to us, but belong to our
community. Lives, stories that may have lay dormant in the archives at the Memorial. We're
putting these people out there and telling them that how we grow from this. How Oklahoma,
the rest of the states, and the rest of the world honestly grew from this. We're saying
we recognize that and we care.
>> DEVON: Today is the big day. We're downtown here at the corner of 6th and Robinson across
the street from the Memorial.
>> NARRATOR: The students are gathered in downtown Oklahoma City for the final performance,
held near the memorial grounds.
>> MASON: It's been an emotional roller coaster. All day being here at the Memorial on the
actual location where it happened.
>> NARRATOR: Before the program, they unite at the survivor's tree to share a prayer.
>> (praying)
>> They find time to reflect alone. Over the past three months, they've been required to
keep a journal. Devon Hannaford has grown form the experience. He calls, a journey.
>> DEVON: This has truly been an amazing experience, never before in my life have I been a part
of anything that meant so much to anyone. I have been blessed, taught, and changed.
And as I look over the waters that flow between 9:01 and 9:03, I think about the lessons I've
learned and know that time will go on and allow me to use these lessons i've learned
in a positive way.
>> STUDENTS: Huh, I'm just so anxious.
>> NARRATOR: Emotions are high. The students rely on each other to make this final performance
a tribute.
>> STUDENT PERFORMANCE: At 9:02 on April 19th 1995. The day the world will remember, the
day I wish I could forget.
>> NARRATOR: It is a tribute to those who were killed, those who survived, and those
changed forever.
>> STUDENT PERFORMANCE: You know they say that time heals all wounds, but I have seen
some people crippled by their wounds. Sometimes we may all feel a little crippled. But we
go on because we chose too. We aren't the first to suffer, we won't be the last.
>> I think of the future I have with my three and five year old boys and I try to be positive
because there's still good in the world you know.
>> HALEY: We want people to walk away with a sense of hope, knowing that things are going
to be great in the future. And also that, we notice how valuable life is, it's a celebration
of life, of these people's lives, basically sharing these stories so that we can be changed.
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