Sundance Debut Tackles School Tragedy Through Musical Theater

A teenager stages an elaborate musical about a school shooting that devastated her community a decade earlier, setting off a chain reaction that forces adults and young people alike to confront uncomfortable questions about grief, trauma, and healing. The film, called "Run Amok," is the feature debut of writer-director NB Mager and premiered this week at the Sundance Film Festival in the U.S. Dramatic Competition.

Background

Mager expanded the concept from a 2023 short film of the same name into a full-length feature. The story centers on Meg, a high school student who lost her mother, an art teacher, in a mass shooting that occurred ten years before the film takes place. Meg lives with her aunt and uncle and remains deeply affected by the loss, as is much of her small community.

The film takes place in a world where such tragedies have become part of the backdrop of American adolescence. Rather than avoid this reality, Mager chose to confront it directly through her protagonist's decision to create a musical depicting the traumatic events. The cast includes Broadway and television actors like Patrick Wilson, Margaret Cho, Molly Ringwald, and Elizabeth Marvel.

Key Details

The Performance

Alyssa Marvin, a New York-based actress known for her recent Broadway work in "Appropriate" and "Grey House," plays the lead role of Meg. Critics and festival organizers have highlighted her performance as the emotional center of the film. Marvin brings what observers describe as layered complexity and affecting persistence to a character navigating impossible circumstances.

Marvin's Broadway resume includes roles that earned her widespread critical attention. She appeared in "Appropriate," which won the Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play, where she played a precocious teenager. She also performed in the First National Tour of "School of Rock" across more than forty cities.

The Tonal Balancing Act

Mager deliberately wove together dark humor with heartbreak, creating what she describes as an unusual tonal landscape. The film includes scenes where students rehearse musical numbers set to popular songs like Britney Spears' "…Baby One More Time" and Roberta Flack's "Killing Me Softly," creating moments that feel both absurd and deeply serious.

"I think comedy is incredibly honest and it permits you to say things and to ask questions that just otherwise are not socially acceptable. And that's what I wanted to be able to do. So I think it's weaving the tension of this challenging subject matter and this very kind of dark undercurrent with the comedy that births this particular tone." – NB Mager

The film explores how young people in America navigate a reality where school shootings and gun violence have become woven into their everyday experience. It centers their voices and their attempts to process grief in ways that adults often fail to provide.

What the Story Actually Examines

Mager emphasized that the film is fundamentally a coming-of-age story, not a message movie with predetermined answers. When Meg decides to create her musical, she and her peers are forced to confront the gap between what adults tell them about moving forward and the messy reality of actual grief.

The film depicts how young people reject the status quo they have inherited. They take the materials available to them—in this case, theater and music—and use them to ask questions that their community has avoided. The adults' "empty promises, reactivity, and platitudes" obscure genuine emotional processing, according to festival materials.

Mager worked intensively with the young cast members, conducting hour-long improvisations in the auditorium where they filmed. This allowed the actors to build authentic relationships before performing scripted scenes, creating a foundation of genuine connection among the characters.

What This Means

The film's approach represents a departure from how cinema typically handles school violence. Rather than focusing on the event itself or its immediate aftermath, "Run Amok" examines how young people years later are still grappling with the consequences. It treats their attempts to understand and process trauma as worthy of serious artistic attention.

The inclusion of musical theater elements—often associated with escapism or entertainment—alongside dark subject matter creates cognitive dissonance for viewers. This tension appears intentional. Mager resists providing audiences with easy answers or clear moral guidance. Instead, she offers questions and invites viewers to sit with discomfort.

The film's success at Sundance, where it competed in the festival's most prestigious category, suggests growing appetite for unconventional approaches to difficult American realities. Marvin's performance has already drawn attention from critics and industry observers, positioning her as an emerging talent capable of carrying complex narratives.

The work also reflects broader conversations about how art can address collective trauma. Rather than treating a school shooting as a discrete event to be resolved, the film examines its ripple effects across years, showing how it shapes identity, relationships, and the way young people see their futures.