Evento

The 13th Floor Storytellers

Join us on Monday, January 12, 2015 at The Linda Gross Theater or Thursday, January 29, 2015 at The Players.

Created, produced, and directed by actor, Molly Price, the 13th Floor Storytellers is a unique series of true stories full of insight, humor, and hope from foster care youth and our elders. We offer an evening of compassionate listening as we witness two of our most precious "natural resources" tell it like it is - and was.

This series offers youth who have survived foster care access to their elders, which is an opportunity not previously available to them. The experience allows them to connect with people who witnessed some of the greatest adversity, deprivation, and prejudice in historyand survived.

The elders witness young people who have survived the foster care system, facing some of the same challenges in different circumstances that they, themselves, have overcome, while offering the youth experienced wisdom and a proven path out of the dark woods.

The focus of the work is hope. We need to have hope in order to live; we lose hope when we are not heard. By listening to stories of the past, we give voice to the future.

Society has a similar prejudice against the old and the youngboth are seen as irritable, opinionated, stubborn, out of touch, explosive, and withdrawn. Sometimes foster youth and elders are seen as burdensome and society wants to put them "someplace" to get them out of view. Someplace they can be ignored and forgottenthe thirteenth floor.

By giving these storytellers a shared stage, we reveal that these two groups are integral to each other. The elders offer wisdom and compassion, while the foster youth bring vitality and HOPE.

"Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out."
- Vaclav Havel
Czech dissident, dramatist & politician.

"There is no agony like bearing an untold story inside of you."
- Maya Angelou