The new Oregon Children’s Theatre play “SPIDER” centers around teens struggling with the numbing effects of social media, normalized gun violence and the interplay of online reality and real life. Playwright Madeleine Adriance graduated from St. Mary’s Academy in Portland in 2019 and is currently a senior at Brown University. She took a semester off to assist with the production of the play OCT commissioned her to write. 

Adriance got involved in the organization when she was just 8 years old and took her first playwriting class when she was a freshman in high school. “SPIDER” opens Friday and runs through November 5. Adriance joins us to discuss the play and the importance of talking about what she calls the “ever-present specter of gun violence” young people live with.