From Twitter 04-18-2010

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Who Will Carry the Word?

Just recieved this email regarding a play by the Weiner High School Gifted & Talented program. A bit of background: the WHS G/T program has been taught since I was 12 years old by a woman named Patricia Hesse, who is an astounding example of a teacher, y'all. Before becoming the G/T coordinator, she was also my first grade teacher. She (along with my junior high science teacher, Martha Senteney) is the teacher who had the biggest, most lasting impact on my adult life. I learned to love learning in G/T, and I learned how to teach myself. She used to think up these huge projects and you'd go "How in the world is this tiny little department in this tiny little school going to pull this off?" but we always did, and it was always AWESOME. The Renaissance fair we threw when I was in 6th grade is my favorite example.

At any rate, this year the G/T class is performing a play, and here's the "press release" style email I recieved about it. If you live in the Jonesboro area, I STRONGLY encourage you to attend. I'll be at one of the performances; I don't know which. I work tomorrow night & Tuesday night, then I'll be sleeping all day on Wednesday, so I guess sometime after that.

 

“Who Will Carry the Word?”

   Weiner High School’s Gifted and Talented Program will present Who
Will Carry The Word? written by Holocaust survivor, Charlotte Delbo.
Drawing upon her memoir, Auschwitz and After, the play depicts the lives
of 20 non-Jewish women, who were part of the French resistance, sharing
a barracks in Auschwitz.  Their goal: to keep the strongest of them
alive so that someone can share their experiences with the world.  A
celebration of the human spirit, Who Will Carry The Word? is a sobering
and very moving portrait of the resilience of ordinary people placed in
extraordinary and in this case, horrifying circumstances—circumstances
that make us feel uncomfortable—circumstances we’d rather not know;
however as Delbo reminds us, “We will have had the strength to live it,
why would others not have the strength to hear it?”
Who Will Carry The Word?, written in 1966, attempts what so many
Holocaust plays avoid: to describe the life inside the concentration
camps with an unflinching eye.
   Delbo makes us see something else, too.  She makes us see the
special responsibility we, the living, have to remember.  In the last
part of her poem entitled, “Prayer to the Living, To Forgive them for
Being Alive,” she writes:  “I beg you—do something to justify your
existence, something that gives you the right to be dressed in your
skin…because it would be too senseless after all, for so many to have
died while you live doing nothing with your life.” The subject matter is
not suitable for children.
   The play will be presented for the public April 24th at 7:00 in the
evening and April 25th at a 2:30 matinee.  Admission is $5.00—all money
will be used to purchase new curtains for the stage.
   The play will also be presented at a special performance for Weiner
High School students, April 23rd and for gifted and talented high school
students from area schools on April 26th.   In a deliberate effort to
foster a cooperative and supportive spirit in the new annexation with
Harrisburg Public School, students will perform the play at the
Harrisburg Center for the Performing Arts April 29th; this includes an
afternoon performance for Harrisburg High School students, followed by
an evening performance at 7:00 PM which will be open to the public. This
sharing is the beginning of both schools benefiting from special
projects/programs in the years to come.  It is hoped that patrons from
Weiner will also attend the Harrisburg performance as a show of support
for both this exceptional group of young women and for what can be an
ongoing collaboration between our campuses.
   “I have been involved in many worthwhile projects with my students
over the past 28 years.  I am convinced that ‘Who Will Carry the Word’
just may be the most powerful thing we’ve ever done.  The acting is so
good you forget you are watching high school girls.  Don’t miss it!”

(Patricia Hesse)

Posted via web from What I Need is All Around Me

Quote

I wanted to pull this quote out of the previous post and state it by itself. It's incredibly powerful, and it's a tenet by which I've lived my life for a very long time, even though I had never heard the quote.

“I beg you—do something to justify your existence, something that gives you the right to be dressed in your skin…because it would be too senseless after all, for so many to have died while you live doing nothing with your life.”