HBO Films Family-Friendly Documentary About 9/11 at Stuyvesant

Representatives from Home Box Office (HBO) recently visited Stuyvesant to film an upcoming family-friendly documentary in partnership with the 9/11 Tribute Museum this May. The short film aims to provide a more digestible way for kids to learn about the 9/11 attack and its impact on the city. Senior Susan He, junior Adam Elsayed, and freshmen Jonathan Schneiderman, Tolulope Lawal, and Reilly Amera were filmed performing monologues from “With Their Eyes: September 11th: The View from a High School at Ground Zero,” a collection of monologues curated by English teacher Annie Thoms and originally written by Stuyvesant students. The film also features several other members of the Stuyvesant community, including students in Ms. Thoms’s class, members of the Muslim Student Association (MSA), and Assistant Principal of Social Studies, Jennifer Suri.

Suri explained that the producers of the documentary reached out to her about creating the film because of her previous work with the 9/11 Tribute Museum. “I’ve written curriculums and lesson plans for [the Tribute Museum] and collaborated with them on some presentations for teachers on teaching about 9/11,” she said. “So, [HBO] reached out to me and let me know about this project, and I, in turn, connected them with [Ms. Thoms] and Lab Middle School, because they were also looking for a middle school.”

Suri was filmed in conversation with her daughter and the director of the film, Amy Schatz. “They wanted a middle schooler to ask me questions about [9/11], so I had my daughter do it [...] and Amy asked questions, and I tried to answer them, about, you know, why did this happen,” she said.

Schatz also wanted to film students performing monologues from “With Their Eyes,” which was originally the 2002 Stuyvesant Theater Community’s (STC) winter drama. The student actors were filmed in discussion with the alumni who originally created and performed the play. “With Their Eyes” began when 10 students recorded interviews with students, faculty, and staff members about the experience and the aftermath, following the lead of actor and playwright Anna Deavere Smith. Students transcribed the interviews into “poem-monologues,” which they then performed and presented during the winter drama. The monologues “are the voices and the actual language of Stuyvesant community members,” Thoms said. “It was a form of oral history. It was a way to capture these stories in the moment for the future.”

Schatz found it important that these monologues end up in her film. “What Amy said to me was that for this particular purpose, for a documentary that’s aimed at students and at kids, having a piece of documentary art that was created by students [in the film] seemed to make a lot of sense,” Thoms continued.

The original performance put most of the focus on the monologues themselves and not on the technical details. “All the actors were on stage at the same time. Each actor would have different parts to play, and you would get into costume on stage, as everyone had a black base layer. The set was very simple; they had [...] a staircase and maybe a little more,” Amera said. “They would act the monologues, and the other actors would try to react to it on stage.”

Continuing, Thoms said, “We saw it as an ensemble piece, and we wanted it to be clear that these actors were taking on these roles. Each actor interviewed two or three people, so each actor was playing two or three people on stage. [...] That was a very conscious, intentional decision.”

The student actors who were filmed performing monologues were inspired by the original play, and used a similar structure with one person performing and the other actors responding. “That’s kind of what we did as well. When you weren’t performing, you were reacting or having a fake conversation,” Amera said.

The group of five student actors were chosen from a larger group who all had to audition. “Both in the original production, with the ten actors that we chose, and this production, we wanted to choose a cast that was in some ways, representative of the breadth of Stuyvesant [...] We wanted to have students from different grades, we wanted to have students of different genders and different races and ethnicities, so students that would look and feel and sound like Stuyvesant,” Thoms said. Thoms worked with student director Mika Simoncelli to pick the student actors.

This choice was reflective of the documentary’s strong emphasis on diversity. “I think [having diversity] helps [portray] the story better because [9/11] happened to everyone,” Amera said. “Also, the original production had a lot of cross-casting, like you had guys playing girls and people playing races that weren’t theirs. I think that it really captures the nature of the story because [...] [9/11] happened to so many people that we really need to have diversity to really grasp the gravity of it.”

Amera felt drawn to participate for multiple reasons. “Part of it was I thought it would be a really cool experience because you get to look at this groundbreaking thing in the eyes of someone who was there,” she said. “Also, for more shallow reasons, I wasn’t going to be participating in the spring comedy [...] so I saw this opportunity and was like, ‘Might as well try out!’”

The experience of being part of the HBO documentary has allowed the actors to see 9/11 through the eyes of the students who experienced it themselves. “I read for a freshman and a senior, at the time, and seeing the freshman’s point of view, for someone who’s still getting adjusted to Stuyvesant I can see how it can really affect your Stuyvesant experience,” Amera said.

She explained that she developed a more personal bond to the situation and gained a new understanding of the events discussed. “I definitely feel a lot closer to it. Before, it was something that I knew about, but [...] I didn’t really have the kind of connection they did,” she continued. “For me, 9/11 has always been a little far away. They don’t really teach it to us because we’re expected to know it [...] but this helped me really perceive the information and process it.”

Senior Susan He explained that performing also helped her learn more about the effects of 9/11 on Stuyvesant. “I didn’t know that people [...] relocated to Brooklyn Tech for 3 weeks [...] After the attack, school was closed [...] and they couldn’t go back to Stuy[vesant] for a week or two,” He said.

The actors anticipate a new outlook on 9/11 for those who watch the documentary. “I hope people get the chance to hear the actual [...] first-hand experience that people had [...] from high school students who knew a world before 9/11,” He said. “We don’t know a world without that kind of fear. We don’t know a world without terrorism, [...] where Al-Qaeda isn’t a thing or [...] ISIS isn’t a thing, because it’s just changed the world so much, and it was such a turning point.”

In the process of filming, the actors also got a chance to talk to several of the alumni who created and performed the original STC play. “Ms. Thoms contacted some of the people who were in the original production and got them to come here to talk to us, and that was probably one of the coolest parts of the entire experience. I got to talk to one of the people who was originally interviewed,” Amera said. “Hearing them talk about it was kind of surreal [...] they said that even after 9/11, they never talked about it [...] For them, it’s kind of like their experience, [...] and for us to have a part and act in it, it was pretty special.”

Adding on, He said, “It was really awesome, but it was also surreal to know that these were the people who put this play together, and it was just really cool to meet them and actually have a conversation with them about why they decided to make this play.”

Both Thoms and Schatz saw the value in having the alumni come speak to the student actors. “Our [current] seniors were one year old when this happened. Our juniors and sophomores and freshmen weren’t born yet. To explain 9/11 to an entire generation that doesn’t know it as their own experience and know it, if at all, as their parents’ experience, [Schatz] thought it would be really interesting, and I absolutely agreed, to have that,” Thoms said.

Ms. Suri concluded by emphasizing the importance of the documentary to the Stuyvesant community. “I think as Stuyvesant students, you know, this is a part of our history, it’s important to know about this as our community. To keep the memory alive of the people that perished and as a part of the history of this institution and this neighborhood.”