Hear Me!  See Me!

                                           A drama from Belleherst Productions
                            Giving a voice to the voiceless victims of Human Trafficking 

                                      Victims are waiting for  

                  A DEFENSE - The TRUTH - RESCUE
                     

                         On Tour U.S.A and the U.K.

                                  October -November 2010

                                           Reviews

Kathleen Ann Thompson is a powerful, intense and intelligent performer...You should go and hear what she has to say...Go and be provoked.   The Scotsman, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Aug. 2010

The purpose of theatre is to show the truth...Kathleen Ann Thompson does that unflinchingly...there's no doubting her sincerity.  Three Weeks, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Aug. 2010

In a captivating performance spanning the globe, roles, gender and ages, Kathleen Ann Thompson returns to the Venue 40 stage with a stunning tour-de-force productionS. Martin Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Aug, 2010.

On behalf of David Batstone and the whole Not For Sale team here in San Diego, we'd like to thank you....your performance was outstanding.  October, 2009

 COMPASSION  

    There are more than 27 million victims of slavery world-wide. They are without a voice …without representation.  They are the invisible, silent cries waiting for The Truth, A Defense, Rescue. Robbed of their dignity, their suffering should not be hidden from us.

    Compassion is sometimes the fatal  capacity  for feeling what it is like to live inside somebody else's skin.  It is the knowledge that there can never really be any peace and joy for me until there is peace and joy for you too.   Frederick Buechner

     Trafficking transports people from their homes and communities using deception, coercion and exploitation. It affects children as well as adults. The average age of a U.S. domestic trafficked victim is between 12-14 years.  Fear, shame and disorientation keeps victims as victims.  They are often misrepresented as criminals and prosecuted if the trafficker and his/her environment is uncovered. Exposing the industry and giving voice to the victims is an act of compassion which Belleherst believes will assist the abolition movement by creating awareness and motivation to engage in the fight.

PERFORMANCE

                                      SEE ME!  HEAR ME!  

                                                                  written and performed by

                                                           Kathleen Ann Thompson

 The Story

     The life goal of Ivy League economics professor, Gertrude Simmons is to write a book and secure her tenure.  As she embarks on a sabbatical year journey to research entrepreneurship in global markets, she discovers that one of the most lucrative entrepreneurial markets is human slavery.  Her number-crunching intellect is forced to confront the human faces that loom behind the statistics.  She struggles desperately to regain her orientation as the mournful voices of human suffering drown out all others.  Her journey takes her to Berlin, Poland, Bangkok, India, Dubai, Phnom Phen, Uganda, Haiti and Ithica, New York.

    Using projections and the movement skills of physical theatre, Kathleen creates a compassionate and jarring surreal portrait of the victims, their traffickers and their defenders. In the end, a change must occur, as it did for Gertrude.  The change must first be ours, then something will change for the victims.

    Entertaining as it is inspiring and informative, See Me!  Hear Me! began its campaign at Columbia University in 2009. Its goal is to bring the facts of human trafficking to the public and assist the efforts of people working to stop it . Immediately following the performance various NGOs working in the field will profile their work and a QA session will ensue.

WATCH YOUTUBE CLIP

The Performer

      Kathleen Ann Thompson is Artistic Director of Belleherst Productions.  She has produced challenging and relevant theatre spanning international borders at: the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art, California; Feta (international street festival), Gdansk,Poland; street theatre, Cherepovets, Russia and Indian Kathak dance theatre, Zagreb, Croatia. She is widely appreciated for her movement skills in bringing difficult subjects to the stage. As a master teacher, her invitations have taken her to Yunan Art Institute, Kunming, China; Bulgarian State Drama Academy, Sofia, Bulgaria;  Every Tribe Films, Panama; as well as Poland, Latvia, the U.K. and the U.S.A.  She is the author of several plays as well as the inspirational book, Keeper of the Gift.

PERSONAL NOTE 

   In 1999, while traveling from Poland to Germany, I witnessed the trafficking of two young Ukrainian girls into the sex trade of western Europe. Their beautiful, young faces and naive eyes haunted me, as on a daily basis I contemplated their future captivity. Their innocence, their education, their family life, their dignity...their freedom had been deceptively bartered from them for the promise of  'a good job'.  They could not know the cruelty, torture, degradation and brokenness they would soon experience. The memory of that day stalked my conscience until I made the decision to produce SEE ME! HEAR ME! as a cry of expression to give voice to the 27 million people in our world (80% are women and children) who exist in slavery...a hell on earth.

All that is necessary  for the triumph of evil is that good men (and women) do nothing . Edmund Burke

Do you care?   After seeing Belleherst's production of  See Me ! Hear Me! YOU WILL.