The year 2018 was the deadliest in modern American history when it comes to school shootings. It was also the year a tiny theater company of teen actors in Dallas set out to create an original stage play about our deep divisions over Second Amendment rights, mass shootings, background checks and automatic weapons. Americans are either pro-gun or anti-gun – at least that’s how the issues get framed. But these arguments aren’t actually binary.

In Gun Play, a five-part podcast series co-produced by KERA and Guns & America, hosts Hady Mawajdeh and Jerome Weeks follow Cry Havoc Theater Company as the teenagers travel across the country to talk to folks on all sides of the debate, from a mom still wrestling with her daughter’s suicide to the owner of a gun range, on a journey that takes them from the snows of Sandy Hook, Connecticut, to the steps of the U.S. Capitol and the floor of the national NRA convention. These young actors, some from streets plagued by violence, provide a window into an issue that tears at the nation.