Echoes in the Columbine Archive

This is my compiled research of the student play titled The Smoke in the Room, performed at Columbine High School during April 1999.

The poster for the play

Newly scanned 1999 Yearbook Supplement

Although Smoke in the Room has been referenced in later books and recollections, very little original material from the production has been publicly available. This 1999 Columbine High School yearbook supplement offers rare contemporary coverage of the play and helps document it as it was presented at the time.

The spread includes cast names, production photos, and a short write up on the performance.

Transcript of the summary of the play

The lights flicker and the crowd grows silent. A young girl walks across the empty, dimly-lit stage to introduce the very first student produced and directed play in the history of Columbine. With emphatic words flowing from her mouth, the audience contains its excitement and wonder of what is to come.

The play begins and the main character, Travis, played by Senior Andrew Robinson, is introduced. Following this, characters Jack, Senior Christopher Beets, and Kelly, Senior Holly Turner, appear as a college couple that can’t seem to keep their hands off of each other.

Each character has his or her own personality which gives the play a diverse feel, from the freak-on-campus to the straight-laced preppy, and from the worried students to the laid-back and party students. The characters create an extremely lively environment that allows the audience to enjoy the play as a comedy. The Smoke in the Room not only offers humor, but it also shows that hard work and dedication are true values which are greatly looked up to.

Being a student-run production, the play provides a brand new and different experience for the viewers. The play also introduces many new student actors and actresses, which allows the play be an even greater success.

Directed by Senior Christopher Logan, The Smoke in the Room is a big success and many of the students find the issues seen in the play to be similar to problems in their lives. The play provides an environment that most students find to be very entertaining

Original Program

Alongside the yearbook coverage, this leaflet the the original program created for audiences attending Smoke in the Room.

The front page credits the production to Columbine High School in partnership with Actors Community Theatre and Yellow Duck Entertainment. It lists the play as written by Andrew Robinson and directed by Chris Logan, with the title the smoke in the room printed beneath the tagline: “sometimes life is the hardest class to pass.”

The program gives exact performance dates and times: April 2 and April 3 1999 at 7:30 PM.

Inside pages list the cast in order of appearance. Andrew Robinson is named as Travis, Christopher Beets as Jack, Holly Turner as Kelly, Sergio Gonzales as Paul, Lauren Beachem as Sarah, Christine Bell as Dr. Halloway, Devon Adams as Anonymous Girl, Nick Baumgart as Guy 1, Sam Granillo as Guy 2, Sarah Bay as Jennifer, Rachel Scott as Val, Chris Partridge as Dad, Katie Trojan as Mom, and Andrew Thomas as Attendant.

The same section also gives the setting of the play. A college dorm room, Central Park, and a hallway. It places the story during the second grading semester.

Another page details the backstage production team. Chris Logan is listed as director, with Andrew Robinson as assistant director. Stage managers were Andrew Thomas and Christine Bell. Lights and sound were credited to Zach Heckler and Yoshi Carrol. Set design involved Jerry Schell, Chris Logan, and Andrew Robinson, while costumes, makeup, hair, scripts, and artwork were assigned to various students and helpers.

The leaflet also includes acknowledgements thanking the cast, crew, sponsors, Columbine janitorial staff, ACT, Jerry Schell, and audience members. One note thanks Mr. DeAngelis for allowing the production to happen.

The program references a dedicated website hosted through the Jefferson County school domain for the spring play, as well as outside printing support.

Smoke in the room clips

Only small clips of Smoke in the Room appear to survive publicly today.

According to later correspondence shared online, Rachel Scott’s former memorial website once hosted excerpts from the play. When someone asked why those materials were no longer available, they reportedly received the following reply:

”Yes, and we once had excerpts of them up on the previous website, but were threatened with a lawsuit by the playwright/producer Andrew Robinson to pull them off even though it was well within our legal right to use them under the fair use act.”

”(…) Rachel had a passion for theater, for speech and the arts. She had just performed in the Columbine school play, Smoke in the Room, and she was writing a play to perform in senior year.”

-17-year-old girl ‘shined for God at all times’ By Lisa Levitt Ryckman; Denver Rocky Mountain News, April 25, 1999

Questions Around Dylan Klebold’s Involvement

One of the recurring points of debate surrounding
Smoke in the Room is whether Dylan Klebold had any direct role in the production’s technical crew.

Some survivor recollections have claimed that Dylan worked lights for the play, suggesting it was his first and only time in that position after no longer handling sound. Others have said they remembered seeing Dylan backstage with Zack Heckler during the performances.

However, the surviving contemporary sources do not clearly support that claim. The original program credits Zack Heckler and Yoshi Carroll for lights and sound responsibilities, while Yoshi’s later police statement discusses working on the production himself and specifically mentions Zach Heckler. Dylan is not named in either source as part of the technical crew for Smoke in the Room or even as being seen backstage by Yoshi. Yoshi mentions talking to Zach.

That does not necessarily mean he was absent. Student productions often involve informal help, backstage visitors, friends dropping by, or last minute assistance that never appears in official credits. It is entirely possible Dylan was present in some capacity, particularly given his known connection to the theatre tech work and his long friendship with Heckler.

At the same time, no currently available primary source definitively places him in an official crew role for this specific production.

Yoshi police statement:

Yoshi Carroll mentioned that Zack Heckler, a friend of Eric and Dylan’s, was in his first-period Psychology class at 7:30 a.m. Yoshi mentioned that (during this time period of spring ‘99)

he works the sound board in the auditorium at the school for the drama department and that Heckler works the lights, so they work in conjunction with each other. He mentioned that they had finished work on the latest school play, ‘Smoke in the Room,’ in which Rachel Scott was in the starring role. Zack Heckler stated to him, “Ya know, up until now I really didn’t like you, but now I think you are okay.” After which point, he and Heckler get along very well now.

He then advised that he did not notice anything strange about Heckler on April 20th but he could not recall if he was in psychology class with him on that date. Yoshi had second period free and that he probably wandered the school some, went to the Tech Lab to do some work. He also recalled visiting the library for about an hour studying, during his free period. Yoshi Carroll had known Dylan Klebold since the 8th grade when he’d newly moved to the area. He had been in Algebra class together with Dylan at Ken Caryl Junior High. He never saw much of Klebold in high school though, until their senior year.

Yoshi advised that Klebold was the sound man for the school plays and often worked the soundboard. He said that Zack Heckler had told him that Dylan was no good at the job (though) but loved it. He believes that Zack Heckler told the teacher that Dylan was not very good as a soundboard man and suggested that Yoshi Carroll to take Klebold’s place.

During the previous school year, Klebold, Heckler and another student whom he believed to be Chris Tabaldo, maintained the school’s web server and web page. Yoshi advised that those three students had given themselves access to the web server and had sent e-mail bombs out to other locations and were hacking into the Jefferson County School District computers and that the three had lost their job administering the computers due to the hacking. At the beginning of the school year, Yoshi’s senior year, he went to teacher Mr. Rich Long, who ran the computer programs and asked if you could maintain the system to learn more about computers. He was granted the job by Mr. Long. Yoshi advised that Zack Heckler has been over his house on numerous occasions since the incident at Columbine High School and that one of his friends, Devon Adams, had been coming to his house often since the incident occurred. He advised that on one occasion she received a telephone call at his residence and began crying after she hung up the phone. Since the incident had occurred, numerous friends had been socializing at his house each day and helping each other out. A few noted socializing at his residence were: Zack Heckler, Devon Adams, Andrew Robinson, Eric Veik, Nick Baumgart and Sarah Bay.

Yoshi stated that he worked the sound board for the drama department, while Zack Heckler handled the lights. He said they had recently finished work on the latest school play, Smoke in the Room, and that Rachel Scott had the starring role.

Yoshi also later mentioned Andrew Robinson among the group of friends gathering at his house after the attack. This is notable because Robinson is credited in the program as the writer of Smoke in the Room and assistant director, while also playing the lead role of Travis. Nick Baumgart was also one of the students spending time at his house after the incident. Baumgart appears in the program cast list as one of the performers.

Devon Adams is also mentioned in Yoshi’s statement and described as visiting his house after the tragedy. She is credited in the program as Anonymous Girl, again linking the official cast list.

Sarah Bay is lastly also mentioned and she is the one who claimed Dylan was working lights on that production instead of Heckler.

Confirmed productions he worked on

A separate police statement from Meg Beck(13011- 13020) manager of the Ascot Theatre in Littleton, describes Dylan and several other Columbine students approaching the theater in December 1998 about staging a fully student run production after losing support for a planned show. Beck recalled Dylan as the main spokesperson, accompanied by Brooks Brown, Drew Lagerborg, and Zack Heckler. They presented themselves as experienced theater students looking for a venue where they could write, direct, and produce their own work.

Most importantly, the materials turned over to investigators included a resume for Dylan Klebold identifying him as a sound engineer and the productions he had worked on.

”Bye Bye Birdie (Spring, ’97)The Music Nian (Spring, ’98)Arsenic and Old Lace (Spring, ’98) Frankenstein (Fall, ’98)Talent Show ’97Talent Show ’98Hispanic Dance Show (Spring, ’98) Oklahoma (in production, ’99)”

Obviously, Smoke in the Room was not yet in production when Dylan Klebold’s resume was submitted to the Ascot Theatre in December 1998, so it would not have appeared among the credits listed there. By that point, however, Oklahoma was specifically described as being in production during 1999, making it the latest show Dylan can be directly tied to through contemporary documentation.

Later claims about his involvement in Smoke in the Room remain mixed. Some recollections place him backstage or associated with lights, while the surviving program and Yoshi Carroll’s statement do not credit him as part of the official crew or being there. Because those accounts do not fully align, his role in that production cannot be treated as definitively established.

For that reason, the most cautious conclusion is that Oklahoma stands as the last confirmed production Dylan Klebold worked on.

Smoke in the Room was a Columbine student production performed on April 2 and 3, 1999.

The available sources make several things clear. The program confirms the dates, credits, and structure of the production. The yearbook supplement provides photographs and a summary of the story. Yoshi Carroll’s statement confirms that students had recently finished the play and remembered Rachel Scott in the lead role.

Some details remain uncertain, particularly later claims about unofficial backstage involvement from students not listed in the surviving credits. With incomplete records and conflicting memories, not every question can be answered with certainty.

Even so, the broader picture is straightforward. Smoke in the Room was one of the last major extracurricular events documented at Columbine before April 20, 1999.