This piece was created purely with my students in mind. Due to the ever-decreasing budgets of their public schools, most of my students had never performed in— or even witnessed— a piece of theatre before. At its conception, this piece was intended to do two things: teach children how to tell stories in new and exciting ways, and allow students to find a place for themselves in the theatre. This project did much more than that. In creating this adaptation, I began to center the story around Cassandra, the woman who speaks but is never heard. These students resonated with her story, as children from under-resourced communities that often have their voices go unheard. Not only was this many of my students’ first experiences in theatre, for many of them, it truly became their first foray into storytelling and in creating work that they are unapologetically proud of.

Their stories matter, and they deserve to be heard.