So . . .Why Donate?

Guns in Dragonland is a collection of short plays about young people who create imaginary dragon friends to supplement people and care they are missing. The story explores the hardship of growing up in a country where the threat of gun violence is inescapable. By doing so, Guns in Dragonland aims to spread awareness about the unhealable trauma that fear, violence, and death have instilled in our country with the misuse of guns. Eislinn Gracen says, “This show isn’t about gun violence, but it’s about American school culture and gun violence just happens to be a large part of that.” The play is filled with colorful creativity, awkward existence, deep grief, and most importantly, hope. 

 

Why Do We Care?

According to The Trace, in 2023, 36,357 US citizens were injured by firearms. That is a low-balled estimate, as injuries from gun violence are incredibly difficult to track. In 2023, 6,192 children and teenagers were shot in the the US, and among them, more than 1,600 of them died. The pandemic showed a surge in both homicidal and suicidal gun violence; in 2020, firearms surpassed motor vehicle crashes to become the leading cause of death among children and teenagers for the first time. We make it our responsibility to better understand how emotional/social isolation leads to gun violence and how our youth are still being affected. 

 

Who Are You Supporting?

Every member of our cast and creative team is a student at Ithaca College. This is a group of passionate creatives working incredibly hard on top of our studies to take this project overseas. The students listed below are making the trip over to Edinburgh, but we have even more students working on the show from the states.