Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan is located four blocks from the site of the World Trade Center. On September 11, 2001, many students, staff and teachers witnessed one or both of the planes flying into the Trade Center buildings. All at the school were displaced in the aftermath, evacuated in the first hours following the attacks, they joined the thousands on the chaotic trek out of Manhattan on foot. In the weeks that followed, they were shuffled to an alternate location for classes. Stuyvesant teacher Annie Thoms was inspired by the work of social change playwright and performer Anna Deavere Smith, whose one-woman plays include Fire in the Mirror, which featured the voices of 26 individuals swept up in the Crown Heights riots in Brooklyn in the early 1990s. Thoms led a group of Stuyvesant students in the creation of a performance piece comprised of interviews with Stuyvestant students, teachers, and staff about their experiences on September 11 and in the weeks that followed. Each student creator/peformer took on the role of several individuals at the school, using the transcribed interviews as dialogue. Each singular narrative performance is one important story of the tens of thousands of stories of how the events of September 11 have affected us all. And each is also a piece of the single story of how one particular community absorbed the impact of those terrible events. (Age 13 and older)

A deeply moving play written by high school students who witnessed the tragedy unfold, remembers September 11, 2001.

The day started off like any other at Stuyvesant High School in New York City, located only a few blocks away from the World Trade Center. The semester was just beginning, and the students, faculty, and staff were ready to start a new year.

But within a few hours on that Tuesday morning, they would all share an experience that transformed their lives—and the lives of all Americans.

with their eyes is a deeply moving play based on a series of interviews conducted by Stuyvesant students with their school community, collecting their firsthand accounts of what they were forced to witness on that devastating day. Commemorating twenty years since the tragedy, we honor those who were lost on that day we will never forget. This updated edition includes a new foreword from bestselling author David Levithan.

Praise for with their eyes

A New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age

“Profound.” —Booklist

“Moving.” —Publishers Weekly

“Rings with authenticity and resonates with power.” —School Library Journal