At Theatre Exile, ‘After the Eulogy’ tells the stories of families affected by gun violence

“Lots.”

That’s Bayyinah Manning’s one-word answer to a question about whether she’s had any friends or family members impacted by gun violence.

One, of course, would be horrible enough. Two would be a catastrophe. But Manning has lost so many cousins and relatives to guns that she can’t immediately call their names to mind. So, she settles on “lots.”

For her, the commemorative T-shirts, the teddy-bear sidewalk memorials, the life-celebration services — “with all of them,” she said, “it just seems like it’s routine. With losing them, it becomes somewhat of a norm, as bad as that may sound.”

Something must be done, and for Manning, 48 — a nurse who grew up in Chester and now lives in Newark, Del. — that something is theater.

On Saturday, Sept. 18, in two performances at Theatre Exile in South Philadelphia, she’ll take on the role of a therapist supporting relatives of gun-violence victims in a play called After the Eulogy. Written by Muhammad Bilal Islam, it’s produced by the Childhoodslost Foundation, a nonprofit group based in West Philadelphia.

In a talk-back after the performances, a few mothers, including Tamika Morales, who is renting a billboard offering a $20,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of her son’s killer, will describe how gun violence has impacted them.

Manning, Morales, Islam, and Childhoodslost founders Kaliek Hayes and Stephen Gardner share a belief in the power of theater to reach young people.

“When the younger generation sees a situation being played out, they can understand it more,” Manning said. She knows that sometimes a mother’s most heartfelt advice, scolding, or prayers can fall on deaf ears — youngsters so often feel invincible.

But in a play such as After the Eulogy, she said — where the relatives and a therapist try to help each other cope with the sad realities of grief, anger, and betrayal after the funeral services are over and everyone has gone home — young audience members can experience the entire scenario via the combination of intimacy and distance that is the special characteristic of theater.

“It makes it real,” Manning said.

The producing organization, Childhoodslost Foundation, takes its name from the moment when gunfire or trauma ends the innocence of childhood.

For playwright Islam, it happened when he and a cousin were sitting on a stoop on a tough block in South Philadelphia. Someone shouted a warning. Then they heard shots. Dumbfounded, they froze for a moment, then started running — but not before the bullet hit its mark, just steps from them. They were about 14 years old.

“That was the first time I ever seen someone get killed,” Islam said.

Ashley Simonvil, 35, of Northeast Philadelphia, who plays a mother grieving over her murdered son, lost her childhood at age 16, when her former boyfriend was murdered. “He was my first love, my first everything,” she said. “It was completely devastating.”

Now, she has a 14-year-old son, and she fears for his life. So she keeps him inside and away, as best she can, from danger. “He’s had a very sheltered life,” she said.

The foundation’s founders, Hayes and Gardner — who are brothers — were together when they lost their childhoods on a playground near 30th and Wharton Streets in Grays Ferry. They were with friends, just hanging out, playing basketball. Someone brought a gun onto the playground; someone else got hold of it. At first, they all thought it was a starter pistol. As a joke, it was fired at a friend, Jomar. No animosity, just dumb kids fooling around.

“I heard the pop. I remember watching Jomar drop. He didn’t make it through the morning. In that moment, my childhood was lost. It changed my life,” said Hayes, 43, who was about 12 at the time. “We were all best friends.” Gardner, who was 17 at the time, felt wracked with guilt about being older but unable to prevent the situation.

The shooter went to jail, was released, and became a minister and a deacon. Gardner, now 48, chose to hew to the straight and narrow, but Hayes walked from the shooting into a street life of crime and drugs, dropping out of school and leaving home. Eventually, he wound up in prison, which, he said, saved his life.

While there, he became determined to do something about gun violence. And after he was released, he enlisted Gardner’s help (the two now live in Drexel Hill).

“We just started to be back in the city, go on playgrounds and talk to kids. I wanted them to hear my story,” Hayes said. “I wanted them to understand that being young is precious. At any moment, you can lose your childhood. I lost mine by seeing trauma.”

He and his brother opened a café in Norristown as a safe haven for young people. That closed. They started a clothing line to get the message out, but that didn’t last.

But other efforts took hold. A chess club they set up in West Philadelphia on South 52nd Street is still going on. They run a mentoring program at George Washington High School. And a new group they’ve started, the Black Boy Experience Book Club, will launch in Germantown in October.

Several years ago, a chance encounter led them to Islam, who opened their eyes to theater as a possible avenue to reach kids.

Since then, the trio have produced plays about domestic violence, foster care, teen pregnancy, and AIDS. In one play, Legacy, Black leaders the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Frederick Douglass, Marcus Garvey, and Malcolm X, return to life as teenagers to deliver their messages to young people, in a conversation moderated by Huey Newton.

“I wanted to do plays for and about young people. I wanted them to see themselves up close and personal. It’s important for them to see themselves in situations before they [can] understand the consequences of the situation,” Hayes said.

Mostly, they try to get teenagers to play the roles and handle production tasks (After the Eulogy, though, has more adult actors, since it is about the impact of gun violence on families).

For the brothers and Islam, the post-play talk-backs are important. All it takes is one young person to break the ice with a first comment — and then the floodgates open and everyone shares experiences and feelings.

Through the plays and mentoring groups, Hayes and Gardner try to identify young people who are natural leaders, then work to influence them away from harmful situations in hopes that they in turn will influence others.

Caprice Cowan, 17, a senior at Commonwealth Charter Academy, thinks plays are effective at reaching teenagers. In After the Eulogy, she’s cast as a 24-year-old whose brother was killed by police.

“Because [theater] is right there, live, in your face, you have to look at it,” said Cowan, who lives in Germantown. “To get across to teenagers, it’s important to have a clear message.”

But the story and plot also have to be intriguing and entertaining, she said.

“When you are in the moment, you don’t have the time to think about what’s the next step,” she said. “That’s the whole point of this play. It makes you think, `What would I do if I was in this situation? If I was this person, what would I do?’' ”

“After the Eulogy,” Sept. 18 at Theatre Exile, 1340 S. 13th St., Philadelphia. Tickets $35 via Eventbrite.com for shows at 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. Admission is free or pay what you can for the first 30 people under the age of 18 who show up for the 5 p.m. show. For more information about Childhoodslost, visit the group’s website, childhoodlostentgroup.com.