In the aftermath of the 2018 high school shooting in Parkland, Fla., there came the revelation that Scot Peterson, a sheriff’s deputy stationed outside the school at the time of the attack, failed to engage the shooter, staying hidden at the base of a stairwell for some 48 minutes. Though Peterson is never mentioned, he is clearly the inspiration for Scott Organ’s poignant and piercing tick-tock drama, 17 Minutes. Tracking the steady demise of a good man who makes a bad mistake, the work chronicles a life that not so much shatters as it does dismantle, like a service revolver being disassembled one piece at a time.
