A Play at Wilson High School

On April 12, Street Sense's Devising Hope theater program performed | Photo by Ken Martin

During the Spring, part of our theater program worked with teenagers from Wilson High School to put on a play at the school. Our work was called “Devising Hope.”

The night of the performance, the Street Sense bunch took off on the Metro to Tenleytown. Ms. Elizabeth, the theater instructor, met us at the school. At 5:30 p.m. pizza and the kids arrived. Around 7 p.m. parents and friends filed in. A short speech from Ms. Elizabeth and we started the play. We whizzed through it. The next thing I knew it was time for the last act….our song. We were excited to belt it out to the audience. We bowed low and it was over. The parents and friends applauded. We mingled with them and left, ready to do this play in the same fashion the next day at the Church of the Epiphany.

On April 13, the Street Sense Devising Hope theater group performed at the Church of the Epiphany | Photo by Ken Martin

Patty Smith


In our theater class we were doing the story of someone from Shakespeare’s works and how he helped all the people in the royal court. This person had given a last-minute party and invited all his friends.

The people were so appreciative of his generosity, telling him of his greatness, singing songs in his honor. They went on all night long with their merry-making. They could not praise him enough.

Finally the time came for the real reason to be revealed to the revelers. They asked their host for more money and gifts…only to hear the sad disturbing news that he was broke.

Devising Hope performance with HB-Woodlawn at Street Sense on Dec. 3, 2015 | Photo courtesy ETC

Patty Smith


To Elizabeth,

The greatest gift of life is existence.

It is naturally and miraculously superseded by the warmth and unconditional impassioned love of the bearers, their environment and the world as they know it, past, present and to be evolved.

The culmination is for survival with more peace, ease and happiness, or so we wish for our newly born seeds. And so I say:

Like the dandelion, seeded by the winds of life, Strewn no set place, but anywhere and everywhere, we are here standing on the solid footing called humanity.

We are human and make mistakes and know that with common sense, it is not the end of the world. Oh, but, the woe and emotion, not genetically encoded, will probably happen again to millions of the breeze born spores sprouted and growing in the universe’s domain. But to ease the painful throes of falling, tripping and stubbornly, fearfully and carelessly; doing it over and and over again endlessly. Sharing and developing the better world challenged by the technological tools vastly supplanting our minds from thinking on our own terms, is an awesome task for our future and future’s future.

And so, we have a helping hand, it is called Devising Hope! It’s an idea in action that works.

Thank you Elizabeth and Shira.

Angie Whitehurst 

On April 13, the Street Sense Devising Hope theater group performed at the Church of the Epiphany | Photo by Ken Martin

Region |Ward 3|Washington DC

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