Santa Rosa students determined to put on play after school auditorium vandalized

SANTA ROSA, Calif. (KGO) -- Vandals hit a North Bay school and that act is only encouraging students to be more determined.

The theater was trashed at Santa Rosa High School just days before a production is set to open. Despite that, the show will go on.

Since Tuesday, when the cast and crew of a play scheduled to open this week, opened the door to find their auditorium and set trashed.

"Pieces of theater all over the theater. We found our columns knocked over. We found broken swords. We found broken lances," said drama teacher Victoria Carpenter

The vandals entered this Halloween night, and almost turned the Greek tragedy, "Trojan Women," into a real one.

"This matters to us. It is important to us. The work we put into it was real. It broke my heart thinking that someone could look over that," said Jolie Santos-Ramsey, a junior at Santa Rosa High School.

The play by Euripides deals with Trojan women banding together after losing their husbands in war. After the vandals smashed their set and parts of the auditorium, the cast banded together to make it right, backed by overwhelming support from the community, and across the country.

"I don't think anyone here will be beat that easily," said another student.

Wednesday afternoon there was a lead in the form of a Snapchat video obtained by the Santa Rosa Press Democrat. It shows a kid with a spear and apparent damage.

"It is not someone from here. We do not know who it is and that is why we turned it over to police," said Brad Coscarelli, the school's principal.

The show opens Friday as scheduled. The tragedy that nearly became a disaster now is a triumph of will and resolve.

"We're still going to put on a show. We're still going to be awesome. All you gave us more publicity, so thank you," Santos-Ramsey said.