In the meantime, Group Sales at the Brooklyn Academy contacted me on February 21. They were adding a new performance on March 1, for students only, priced at $60 per ticket, and asked, did I want to organize a field trip? I immediately contacted my principal, but with the short notice, it was impossible to pull off. Didn’t I know that we needed board approval for field trips, which required at least one month’s notice? I shared the news with my students, who were dismayed. Yogi, Barnes’ grandson, asked me, Can I contact BAM? Of course, I said. Perhaps by channeling his grandfather, Yogi organized the whole event, first contacting Group Sales, then arranging the number of tickets. Students had to provide their own transportation from the Catskills to NYC, and they had to pay for their own tickets, but seventeen of us made it there, experienced live theater, immersed in the brilliant writing of Tennessee Williams and the incredible performances of Patsy Ferren as Blanche and Paul Mescal as Stanley. At intermission, the students were abuzz. Lily turned to me and asked, “Did they leave out the part about Blanche’s husband being homosexual? Why would they do that?” And Lila exclaimed about Mescal’s performance, which saw him crawling on the ground on all fours, “HE IS SO SCARY!” Once the curtain closed, the students ran to the stage door, carrying their old copies of the play with Marlon Brando’s shirtless image on the cover. Paul Mescal graciously signed them. So what? I’m always attentive and listening. I’m not holding back but using all of the resources that appear before me. I look for ways to make things come together; I always have. I’m not passive in my role, but instead actively seeking ways to make learning relevant. I have hope. And energy, kind of. I believe that we are meant to find experiences like these for our students. I “live in the layers”- in the spaces where things happen that go beyond basic instruction and into, hopefully, the places where memory resides.
HVWP COMMONPLACE 39
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