EDITORS' CORNER
University says campus police are investigating, but no confirmation on whether disruption was deliberate
Northwestern University police are investigating the disruption of a play about the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas terrorist attack while it was being performed Tuesday, campus officials confirmed to The College Fix.
However, Northwestern’s media relations office did not say whether the disruption caused by a fire alarm was deliberately done to disrupt the pro-Israel play.
“At approximately 8:12 p.m., a fire alarm at Cahn Auditorium was activated, which caused the evacuation of the building,” the university stated in an email Wednesday when contacted by The Fix.
“Upon a fire and police investigation, the building was determined safe, and guests invited back in. The event continued as planned and concluded at 9:45 p.m. The Northwestern University Police Department will continue their investigation,” the university stated.
Playwright Ann McElhinney posted a video of the disruption on X. In the video, alarms can be heard blaring as a theater full of people stand up and exit the building.
“Somebody pulled the fire alarm,” an individual can be heard saying as the crowd exits the building.
The “October 7” play, written by McElhinney and fellow conservative author Phelim McAleer, is based on verbatim testimonies of Israelis who survived the terrorist attack.
About half an hour after the alarms went off, McElhinney posted an update on X, writing, “They’re bringing people back into the theater, but everyone’s getting searched so there’s a delay, but we are going to resume the play.”
Two relatives of an Oct. 7 hostage were in the theater Tuesday, according to The Jerusalem Post:
Among those in attendance was Abby Polin, the aunt of murdered hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin, along with Hersh’s grandmother. Polin told the Post, “In the midst of a packed theater in Evanston, Illinois, on the Northwestern University campus, watching a riveting verbatim performance of testimonies of October 7 survivors produced by non-Jewish Irish journalists, that an alleged Jew-hater pulled the fire alarm to interrupt a story about hatred is so beyond appalling.” …
“It was an audience of people of all ages and religions in attendance. It just reinforced to the audience how evil people in this world can be.”
McAleer and McElhinney, who are married and live in Ireland, told the Post that they were not in the theater, but they were watching it live over Zoom when the alarm went off.
The play’s director believes the disruption was deliberate and political, according to the report:
Following the evacuation, police arrived at the scene. McAleer told the Post that about half of the full house of roughly 940 people chose to return after the police gave the all-clear, while others did not feel safe enough to re-enter.
Emphasizing that the show must go on, McAleer said that the cast and crew were deeply determined not to be shut down, noting that the actors were exceptionally passionate and that finishing the performance yielded a standing ovation. McAleer added that organizers intended to file a formal police report to ensure the incident is fully investigated.
In a statement to the Post, the play’s director, Jeff Gurner, dismissed the disruption as an insignificant protest, asserting with a message to whoever the perpetrator was that he “achieved exactly nothing. The actors and audience reconvened, the performance picked up where it left off, and the voices of those people whose stories were told in the play, along with the memory of those who were lost on October 7, were more powerful than ever.”
Northwestern Hillel hosted the event.
Three years ago on Oct. 7, Hamas terrorists crossed over from Gaza into Israel in the early morning hours, murdering about 1,200 men, women, and children, and taking about 250 more as hostages. Some returned, others died.
MORE: What the survivors of Oct. 7 revealed about the anger I still held
