Silverthorne Actors Bewitched Halloween at Highland!

Silverthorne actors took part in the Greenfield Recreation Department’s first-ever Halloween at Highland Park Drive-Thru event on Thursday, October 30. Working at the Greenfield Business Association’s station which featured Witches and Black Cats were Stephanie Carlson (at the potions table), Kimberly Salditt-Poulin being very witchy, Thom Griffin whose vampire checked with occupants of each car whether they had donated blood lately, and Kim’s son Zac who was a cheerful warlock! Lucinda Kidder stirred a cauldron full of eye-of-newt stew for take-out customers. Over 570 cars drove through the park over the two-hour period of the event and all agreed that despite the cold, it was a fantastically fun way to celebrate a COVID Halloween.

In conjunction with our mission to promote unheard voices, Silverthorne Theater Company is assisting with this important project by Time To Tell.

SURVIVORS’ VOICES:
Works of Resilience Written and Read by Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse

Call for Written Entries: Due by 8 p.m. November 11, 2020
Live Zoom Event: January 22, 23, 24, 2021

Submission Guidelines

Submissions due by 8:00 p.m. on November 11, 2020
Submission Form

Thank you for considering a submission to Survivors’ Voices: Works of Resilience Written and Read by Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse. We already know that you are courageous and resilient—even if you decide not to submit anything!

Our Goal: Our goal is to support the creative and courageous voices of survivors while educating the community about the issue of childhood sexual abuse. Survivors will read their works of poetry, short fiction, prose or essays, in an innovative, community supported and survivor-led, weekend event.

Our Process: We know that childhood sexual abuse is universal. It cuts through all populations leaving scars in every community. In order to ensure that all Survivors’ voices are heard we will be inviting applicants to share their demographic information including race, LGBTQI, gender, age, person with a disability, and any identities that are important to the applicant.

All submissions will be curated to reflect the goals of Survivors’ Voices—giving voice to the courage and resilience of survivors of childhood sexual abuse. This will be a difficult task since every submission is an important voice to be heard! However, given our limited performance time we are not able to choose every submission. Three survivors (Jackie Humphreys, Donna Jenson and Strong Oak Lefebvre) and one ally (Lucinda Kidder) will conduct a blind review of the submissions and curate the final pieces to be read. This project is made possible by a generous grant from The Art Angels, a group of donors supporting the arts and social change in Western Massachusetts.

Find out more about the project, and/or submit your writing.

Survivors’ Voices: Works of Resilience Written and Read by Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse

A live zoom event on January 22, 23, & 24, 2021

This project & performance was inspired by the courageous and eloquent, yet often silenced, voice of a Survivor poet whom Jackie is blessed to know. This project offers Survivors an opportunity to share their original writing regarding their experiences of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) and their paths of healing in a creative, community supported and survivor-led, virtual, weekend event. The audience will be community and family members as well as professionals who work with CSA Survivors.

To support Survivors’ writing, Donna and Jackie will hold a series of workshops including two for teens. To learn more see below.The main event will take place over the weekend of January 22nd, 23rd, and 24th 2021, and will consist of one hour, virtual readings on each day.  After each performance there will be a facilitated dialogue between the audience and Survivors.

Each participant selected will have the option of attending a (virtual) workshop with a coach from Silverthorne Theater, to receive guidance and theatrical support for the performance of their piece/s.

Find out more about the project.

Silverthorne Theater Company to present previously filmed play about stories from the Holocaust

from the GREENFIELD RECORDER

“Silverthorne Theater will again bring to local audiences an important piece of dramatic writing:  The Tattooed Man Tells All, a collection of stories about the Holocaust performed by New York Playwright Peter Wortsman. His gripping solo piece was woven from a series of interviews conducted, on a fellowship from the Thomas J. Watson Foundation, in Vienna in 1975 with witnesses to and survivors of the Holocaust.

Silverthorne’s filmed version of the play will be broadcast online by Silverthorne Theater Company on Nov. 13 and 14 at 7:30 p.m. Tickets are available at stc.booktix.com. The production is a fundraiser for the Greenfield theater company. There will be a free live Zoom discussion with the playwright immediately following the viewing on Friday, Nov. 13. The link will be posted on Silverthorne’s website and on social media.

Silverthorne’s original live world premiere performance of this play in 2018, starring actor Keith Langsdale, was directed by Ellen Kaplan. The play will be performed in Germany at the Deutsches Theater in Göttingen this coming December.

By condensing these accounts into that of a survivor who is committed to a no-holds-barred retelling, Wortsman provides a fully fleshed-out dramatic character, the Old Man, warts and all, for the audience to come to know.

As the playwright says in his introduction, “The interchange(s) recorded on tape (were) painful to revisit … for my interlocutors’ merciless bluntness … the subject of which (the Old Man) speaks has since been loaded with a leaden label, idealized and idolized, riddled with spotlights, torchlit for moral uplift, hagioscopically highlighted with a reverence formerly reserved for the Crucifixion.”

The audience becomes the interviewer to whom the Old Man talks, retelling and reliving his time in the camp.

“I could be whatever they wanted — melt in — become part of the landscape — or better yet, turn into thin air so they could look right through me.”

From his closet comes his camp uniform that quickly assumes a life of its own. The stories weave in and out of the Old Man’s memories and paint a picture both fascinating and horrifying.

Why now? Now we need to hear and see again what ‘humanity’ is capable of under duress and at its darkest moments. “You can’t just dispose of the past, cut it out like a malignant tumor. It’s still there, it’s still an intimate part of me,” Wortsman said.

Silverthorne Theater Company is a registered non-profit arts organization founded in 2014. The company’s mission is to present adventurous, thought-provoking theatrical experiences, including productions of classic, contemporary and new works for diverse audiences.”

https://www.recorder.com/Silverthorne-Theater-performance-102920-37017881

HALLOWEEN AT HIGHLAND DRIVE-THRU EXPERIENCE

The Greenfield Recreation Department, in partnership with businesses and agencies throughout the City, is planning a contact-less drive through Halloween experience at Highland Park.

DATE: Friday, October 30, 2020
TIME: 4:00 – 6:00 pm
LOCATION: Highland Park, Greenfield

Enter via Highland Avenue
Join us for a 3/4 mile drive full of Halloween sights.
Participants must stay in their vehicles at all times. Speed Limit is 5MPH. Masks required for all attendees. Costumes encouraged. Halloween Treat Bags distributed to the first 2000 children.

Find out more here!

Silverthorne actors will participate in costume in the Greenfield Recreation Department’s Halloween at Highland Drive Thru Experience.

They will be representing Silverthorne as a member of the Greenfield Business Association at the GBA’s station along the Drive-Thru route.

They will assist with handing out candy to children in cars and generally adding to the Halloween atmosphere!