A theatrical production is a process of transformation. An idea is drafted into a script, which is then workshopped and blocked in rehearsal. Technical elements like sets and lighting are designed and built. The goal is to bring a message to life for an audience. This process, however, has a dark, inverted reflection in the world of political violence. As terrorism expert Brian Jenkins wrote, “Terrorism is theatre,” an act aimed not just at the victims, but at the people watching. This grim principle is powerfully dramatized in Rajiv Joseph’s play Archduke, as the young men tasked with assassinating Franz Ferdinand stage a rehearsal. Coached by their very own “director,” they use two chairs for a motorcade, squabbling over who must play the Duchess in a scene that feels more like tragicomedy than tactical planning. But this is not merely absurdist fiction; it is a glimpse into a well-trod path. The act of rehearsal serves as a crucial bridge where violent fantasy is choreographed into an executable reality. Examining these “productions”, from their casting calls to their technical rehearsals, reveals they are not random acts of chaos. They are carefully staged performances. This is not just an act of historical analysis; it is a tool for guessing the plot before the curtain rises. Preventing violence, then, may not require a bigger response to the final act, but a better understanding of the production process.
Blocking and Choreography: September 11th.
To their flight instructors in Florida and Arizona, they were unremarkable students, with one glaring exception: the men cast as the 9/11 hijackers showed a strange indifference to the fundamental skills of aviation. Instructors later recalled that some were interested only in learning how to control an aircraft mid-flight, not in mastering takeoffs or landings. They weren’t learning to be pilots; they were learning a single piece of stage direction: how to aim the aircraft. This was the first act in a meticulously produced horror show, workshopped for years across multiple continents: a technical rehearsal in its purest form, isolating the single skill needed for mass destruction.
Beyond their flight training, the conspirators engaged in operational rehearsals. In the months leading up to the attacks, they booked tickets on the very same cross-country flights they intended to hijack. These “surveillance flights“ were a rehearsal performed in plain sight, allowing them to study their stage and its blocking: the timing of cabin service, the number of crew members, the precise moment the cockpit door was most likely to be opened. They were mapping the existing choreography of a normal flight to identify its point of vulnerability. Physical conditioning formed the final act. The hijackers joined gyms, focusing on strength training to ensure they could overpower anyone who might resist. By the time they boarded their flights on that blue September morning, the act was no longer theoretical. It had become muscle memory. Years earlier, President Reagan declared that there must be “no place on earth left where it is safe for these monsters to rest, to train, or practice their cruel and deadly skills.” The 9/11 hijackers, however, had found their safe havens not in a distant stronghold, but in a Florida flight school, a local gym, and the cabin of an American airliner. The world witnessed the devastating premiere, a performance where the curtain rose after years of rehearsal.
The Tech Rehearsal: The Oklahoma City Bombing.
The blueprint for modern American domestic terror wasn’t drafted in a clandestine meeting room, but in the landscape of the American heartland. Timothy McVeigh, a Gulf War veteran consumed by anti-government rage, didn’t just fantasize about striking a blow against a system he despised; he approached it with the cold calculation of a chemist. His rehearsal was less theatrical and more scientific, a grim experiment to perfect his method of destruction. Using the white supremacist novel The Turner Diaries as his script, McVeigh cast himself as the protagonist and began work as the production’s technical director creating his own weapon of mass murder.
His chosen special effect was an ANFO bomb—a volatile mixture of ammonium nitrate fertilizer and nitromethane racing fuel. McVeigh refused to leave its power to chance. In the months leading up to the April 19, 1995, attack, he drove into the Arizona desert to conduct rehearsal detonations. He mixed smaller, prototype versions of his bomb, experimenting with ratios and trigger mechanics, studying the pyrotechnics—the flash, smoke, and shockwave— to refine his formula for maximum lethality. This was both his laboratory and rehearsal studio. Each explosion was a data point and dramaturgical note. His tech run was the drive itself: he mapped the route to the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, timing the traffic lights and plotting his getaway. When he parked the truck filled with nearly 5,000 pounds of his tested-and-perfected explosive mixture, he was executing a procedure he had already proven to himself – a calculated message to a government he viewed as an enemy. McVeigh’s desert tests were the critical link, transforming his violent ideology from a hateful screed into an engineered reality that would claim 168 lives.
The Dress Rehearsal: Foiling the Whitmer Plot.
Sometimes, the dress rehearsal is when the curtain comes crashing down. The 2020 plot by anti-government extremists to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer provides a crucial lesson: the act of rehearsal, while essential for perpetrators, can also be their moment of greatest vulnerability. The conspirators, members of a militia called the Wolverine Watchmen, planned to snatch Whitmer from her vacation home and put her on “trial” for tyranny over her COVID-19 policies. They conducted multiple “field training exercises,” practicing with firearms, detonating small explosives, and rehearsing how they would breach a building.
Then they began specific mission rehearsals, conducting several surveillance runs on Governor Whitmer’s vacation home and practice runs they referred to as “field training.” In one night-time reconnaissance, they scouted the property and mapped a nearby bridge they planned to blow up to delay law enforcement. But their performance was being watched. Unbeknownst to them, the FBI had embedded an informant in their group, and their meticulous practice sessions were being recorded. These rehearsals became the prosecution’s star evidence.
As Assistant U.S. Attorney Nils Kessler argued to the jury, their detailed planning proved their intent was real. “They were training for this for a long, long time,” Kessler said. The Whitmer case reveals the double-edged nature of rehearsal. It is the process that hardens intent, but it also creates a tangible trail, offering a precious, and often final, window for law enforcement to cancel the show before opening night.
This is not an isolated list of anecdotes; it is a standard operating procedure. Somewhere, right now, a violent plan is moving from abstract idea to choreographed reality. The rehearsal solidifies resolve, exposes flaws, and forges a psychological point of no return. This process functions to build automatic actions, desensitize participants to the violence they are about to commit, and replace the hesitation of conscience with the certainty of a trained response. With this framework, perhaps we can learn to read the casting call or notice the set being built. Preventing violence may not require more reaction, but earlier recognition.