Heaven's voice rose as her anguished cries grew more insistent.

"Mama! Mama! I am right here!" the 11-year-old girl pleaded as she circled her mother, who had collapsed to the floor, hysterical. "Mama! Look at me! Please, look at me!"

In the mesmerizing scene, part of a new and unusual play examining Chicago's violence, Heaven has succumbed to gunshots and is crying out to her grieving mother moments after she learned of her daughter's death.

The dramatic staging of a mother and daughter ripped apart by gun violence is a vivid and painful reminder of all the children who have been lost to Chicago's streets, especially in recent days when two girls, 11 and 12, and a 2-year-old boy were struck down by errant bullets in separate shootings.

If there is a note of authenticity to "My Soul Cries Out: Stop!" it is because its author knows the reality of Chicago's toughest neighborhoods all too well.

She's a Chicago cop.

As part of her work as a community policing officer in the Wentworth District on the South Side, Denise Gathings compiled reports in a binder on shootings of youths — timely information for officers and investigators on the street.

Then, in 2015, the killing of a teen who was a regular at youth beat meetings in the district left Gathings distraught. To deal with the pain, she decided to write about the violence.

Chicago police officer Denise Gathings has written a play examining Chicago gun violence.

(John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune)

"I thought, what if I could tell the story about how this stuff started and how it has gotten so out of control," said Gathings, who grew up on the West Side. "And how many people are being affected."

It is a work in progress, but the cast of 15 gave its first performance on Friday to about 150 students at Leif Ericson Scholastic Academy, an elementary school in the East Garfield Park neighborhood.

When it was over, kids took photos with the actors and asked to join the production, according to principal Leavelle Abram.

"Oh, my God, it was powerful," Abram said. "I think every school in this area should see it."

A sensitive touch

Gathings, who is doing this on her own time, allowed the Tribune access to the rehearsals since last summer.

As Chicago's violence was peaking in those dangerous months — in a year that ended up with the most homicides in two decades — Gathings, 58, was putting the finishing touches on the play and assembling a troupe of mostly extended family members and friends. Most have limited theatrical experience except for singing and dancing at church.

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They held rehearsals in police district stations, churches, the sweltering Ericson school auditorium, even at Gathings' West Side home, where they pushed couches to the wall in the front room to make space. Once, during a steamy summer rain, the cast and crew took over the sidewalk in front of the home Gathings grew up in to practice a scene in which a dispute over drug turf ends in a fatal shooting.

Five or so houses down the block, young men lingered, casually watching. As the sun broke through, a rainbow arched over the city just as the rehearsal came to an end.

"Oh, look at that," Gathings said.

She called the group in for a prayer circle to end the day.

Her play captures the pressures on the street that too often build to violence and the painful aftermath. She tackles tough topics like snitching and retribution but also injects a measure of humor.

The storylines — written by a Chicago cop at a time when relations with police in crime-ridden neighborhoods have frayed — bring a sensitive touch, even to the gun-toting gang members and drug users who fuel the violence.

"That is part of who she is, being sensitive to the community and its residents," said police Chief Fred Waller, who was her commander at Wentworth and now heads the department's Bureau of Patrol. "And that is part of what makes Denise so good at what she does. She has genuine engagement."

At rehearsals, Gathings, who also performs in the play, easily slips into all the characters to help the other actors understand their parts. Among the key roles are: a promising teenage dancer who ignores all good sense and her mother to hang out on the corner with the drug dealer she fell for; a giggling crackhead, desperately sad and funny at the same time; and the menacing gang thug who needs to protect his small piece of real estate.

Ameena Chapman, Gathing's niece, portrays a wise-cracking drug addict who loses her son to gun violence. She said she signed on to the project because of Gathings' ability to go beyond stereotypes.

"You do have your crackheads who are hilarious," said Chapman, 34. "They just go with the flow. In reality, she is masking her pain. You see the pain when she is told her son is dead. You see that person. Drug addicts are coping."

A tool for change

In 16 years on the force, Gathings has worked a variety of jobs — as a patrol officer, then a tactical plainclothes cop and now in community policing.

She enjoyed the different responsibilities those jobs brought but feels community policing gives her the best window into people's lives.

"What moves 'em. What they need. What they don't need," she said. "...You are out there listening to people."

Gathings had a knack for this aspect of the work, she found.

"When people find out you are sincere, they are behind you 100 percent," she said.

Gathings grew up in a large, extended family in the Fifth City neighborhood, a patch of the East Garfield Park community area. A portion of Fifth Avenue is named in honor of her mother, Ruth Carter, one of the founders of a preschool in the community who was a community activist. Gathings' family remains close — last Christmas she hosted some 150 guests at her house, she said.

A straight shooter, she talks openly about her own family's struggle at times to avoid the streets. This has inspired her work as well, she said.

"I am hoping this play heals them," she said.

At recent rehearsals, Gathings has been offered a helping hand by Chicago theater veteran Tria Smith of now-shuttered Redmoon Theater.

At its best, art and theater can be a tool for change and a chance for transformation, said Smith, who praised Gathings for her "act of hope" by pulling together non-actors committed to sharing painful realities.

"When I came in and saw the piece, I was amazed at the words. I was amazed at the truth of the performances and the power, their ability to let go and really speak and sing and be completely present," Smith said. " … They are able to come together and speak the words of, 'How can this (violence) be happening?' They are calling that out together."

'Too hard living'

During a rehearsal at the Ericson school, Gathings was directing one of the cast's youngest members, Daniel, 10.

"I got to have it, Daniel," she said. "We need this. We need you, OK? A huge you."

Minutes later, the lanky boy walked onto the stage, arms swaying as he belted out the lyrics of a Sam Cooke song from 1964 that seemed strikingly modern.

"It's been too hard living, but I'm afraid to die," he sang. "'Cause I don't know what's up there beyond the sky. It's been a long, a long time coming. But I know a change gonna come, oh, yes, it will."

The play depicts the painful aftermath for unintended victims who are suddenly and brutally cut down — a timely topic for a Chicago reeling from the three children lost to random violence in four short days.

To the cast and crew, these threats are real and so routine that each day can seem precious, even delicate, said Chapman, who is Daniel's mother. The play provides a chance to express those feelings.

"They know what is happening. It's happening in our neighborhoods," Chapman said. "I don't like to sugarcoat or hide anything. ... The only thing we can do is pray. Pray every night. We pray about safety, getting home or going to school and being safe."

Cristiana Strong, whose daughter Heaven portrays the slain girl pleading to her grief-stricken mother, speaks openly with her daughter about the threats around her.

Strong, 30, who has not seen any of the rehearsals, wasn't surprised to hear of the impact of the play on her daughter — when she finished her scene during one practice she walked back to her seat and quietly wept.

"She is very aware. … I explain that things happen and some things we can't control," Strong said. "She is very soft-hearted. She understands, and it hurts her to live in a place like this."

Gathings is hoping that the play can help people who live outside these troubled neighborhoods to understand the pain its residents are enduring.

She also wants kids growing up on these streets to view the play so they can think about violence in a different way.

How can they avoid trouble? What can they do to stay safe even in the tough place they live?

asweeney@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @annie1221

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