WHAT'S IN A NAME?

Filmmaker: Safa Daftani

33 minutes

In the summer of 2022, six student filmmakers produced a film about Janet Wide Awake, a play produced by Passage Theatre at Hedgepeth-Williams Middle School. The play looks at the desegregation of the Trenton junior high schools in the 1940s and was co-written and performed by students at the school. The documentary goes behind the scenes to shows how students, historians, teachers, playwrights and performers came together to think about this moment in the history of the Trenton schools and, more broadly, about equal access to educational opportunity today. Over a year of collaboration, a class of students and local artists recount the history of the Hedgepeth-Williams Middle School by weaving elements of the past, present, and future. But “Janet Wide Awake” is more than just a historical narrative; it becomes a "dream" of students' experience in which theater allows them to embody stories distant yet parallel to their own. Opening night presents a polished product, but this film demonstrates that teamwork and an inventive spirit are needed to make any dream a reality.