'One,' Episode 18: Carrie Mannino tells a broader, deeper story of community in the aftermath of tragedy

2.9.21
Dilge Buksur YC'24
Composite sketch of three photos following the October 2018 shooting at Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburg, PA, including By daveynin from United States - People paid for the respect, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=74877748, By 燃灯 - Own work, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=74243217, and By Official White House Photo by Andrea Hanks - President Donald J. Trump and First Lady Melania Trump Travel to Pittsburgh, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=74082718.

In episode #18 of the Yale Schwarzman Center web series, One, Estefani Castro YSD'21 interviews Carrie Mannino YC'20 about her senior thesis project in creative writing. Mannino’s documentary play, It Couldn’t Happen Here, delves into the aftermath of the October 2018 shooting at Tree of Life Congregation in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The episode contains a dramatic reading of an excerpt from It Couldn’t Happen Here and explores insights from Mannino’s writing process.

Mannino is an English major at Yale College, and she illuminates how her personal connection as a member of the Squirrel Hill community, prompted her to tackle such a sensitive event in her senior thesis. She notes that her friends came to know her community from national news without specific details of the community’s background and people, and she decided to fill that gap by reflecting Squirrel Hill from a broader perspective and providing a different lens to examine the tragic event. 

Manino’s ultimate goal is to invite conversations about topics that people often avoid. She describes her work as an educational tool to help larger audiences see pressing issues from various perspectives and to spark discussions around them. 

I wanted to tell a broader and a deeper story about my community, what it is like to live here, grow up here and to follow the aftermath long past the media stopped covering it.
Carrie Mannino YC'20

Castro, the host of episode #9, is an MFA student in the Yale School of Drama’s Theater Management program and works as the assistant director for stakeholder engagement at the Schwarzman Center.

One, a web series produced by the Yale Schwarzman Center (YSC), highlights interdisciplinary approaches to the arts in relation to the YSC’s values of collaboration, wellness and belonging. The inaugural season illuminates the creative and academic merits of student works impacted by physical distance and explores perspectives on community-building among dispersed groups.  The series title, One, is a nod to the YSC’s aspiration to advance a sense of “One Yale” and create an interconnected community that builds new traditions of student engagement around the campus and into the world.

Subscribe to One on the YSC YouTube channel. Connect with the YSC on FacebookTwitter and Instagram for the latest digital content and announcements.