I write now to encourage your support of an extraordinary writing project named Still Waters in a Storm, in Bushwick, Brooklyn. In the first instance I write in support of Stephen Haff, whom I have known for nineteen years.

In 1999 Haff was a talented theater director and administrator at the legendary New Dramatists, a midtown space established to nurture and support playwrights. A good man, a good job, he might have done it all his life.

What he has done instead has astonished me. You may already be familiar with the Shakespeare and Milton productions he staged with Bushwick kids. What a troupe he put together in Real People Theater. What moving, singing, dazzling productions they put on. I don’t know where I saw them first–some basement, nowhere special–but it was not too long before the troupe had been noticed, as they toured the US, Canada and Europe. These shows, which the company called the “ghetto version” of classics, translated by the actors into Spanish and Street, were real. No overlay of artistic pretense. The plays had their humanity restored.

The last time I saw them play it was at The Performing Garage, sponsored by The Wooster Group. The kids from Bushwick played to New York’s artistic elite (Elizabeth Lecompte, Willem Dafoe, Graciela Daniele and others) and received a standing ovation.

Stephen Haff went to Yale, so you could say he had a course set out for him, except he refused it. He left New Dramatists. He entered the public school system, not to work with the most privileged students but the least advantaged. Time and time again he earned his students’ trust. Why did they give it to him? The answer is, quite simply, because they saw who he was. I believe you will, too.

I am writing today because another Stephen Haff project is blossoming. He, of course, would say it is not a Stephen Haff Project at all. In a sense he would say this rightly, because the project is being made by Bushwick residents of all ages, including small children, teenagers, and a wide range of adults. It is the writing group, the one called Still Waters in a Storm.

The members of the group write freely, about anything, in any style or genre. They meet over pizza. They write, read aloud and discuss their writing. If you could be a fly on the wall you’d hear complex, inspiring group discussions that would take your breath away.

The writers describe the group as “family,” as “therapy.” Some say it’s what gets them through the week. Yet anyone who has been privileged to read their work knows that much more than this is happening–stories and poems and essays begin tentatively, but soon the rhythms become more complex and confident, the metaphors more striking, the meanings more layered.

When Stephen Haff walks through your doorway, you may not at first recognize a miracle worker, and perhaps that’s his secret. He listens. He hears the voices of the street and invites them in. Almost removing himself, nearly disappearing, he makes room for others to express themselves and thereby gives them the space to show who they really are.

In traditional schooling, teachers are the stars and students must run the curriculum. Stephen Haff’s method is different, not least in that it succeeds in those tough streets where the old-style game no longer works. This approach is feeding school’s refugees what they need, and delivering what a whole city wishes for them.

Good news is hard to find these days. That is why we need to support Stephen Haff and Still Waters in a Storm.

Sincerely,

Peter Carey