THE FOTINI PROJECT

One
Greek Woman.

Three
Beloved Churches.

Four Ways
To Experience Her Story.

How would you
like to begin?

TO THE NOVEL

THE PLAY

THE SHORT FILM

THE HISTORY

The Novel.

The novel, titled,
Better Than The Children’s Hour,
is sectioned by way of acts instead of chapters.

“Dusk. A time between night and day, dark and light. A time Light promises to fight for us— on behalf of us, even while we rest. Especially while we rest.”
~ Better Than
The Children’s Hour

JANE BOYER (Voice of the Narrator); NICHOLAS JACKSON (Consulting Audio Engineer, Male Singing Voice); MARK RUBINSTEIN (Consulting Audio Engineer); LISA STROTH (Voices Fotini); MAGGIE WATSON (Project Director, Writer); GINA WINKS (Audio Engineer).

The Play.

The novel has been adapted for the stage.
Two scenes from that script have been produced and live-recorded.
Discovery Day can also be found in ACT I. Sheers & Chemise can also be found in ACT V.

Scene #1
DISCOVERY DAY

JACOB AUGENSTEIN (Project Manager-GPCreative); MONICA BAIN (Liaison, Facilitator); SETH BROWN (Editor-GP Creative); MELANIE COLBERT (Narrator); MATTHEW DANDRUFF (AV Technician); KRISTINA D’ONOFRIO SWEAZY (Choreography, Female Voice); ELVIS FUNES (Lighting); KELLY HURLBURT HINES (Fotini); MIKE MARRAH (Director of Photography-GP Creative); CHRISSY MARSEY (Logistics); TAYLOR McCLINTOCK (Film Director-GP Creative); ETHAN OURS (Accompaniment-Trombone); VINCE RESTIVO (Lighting); SHINE ROBISON (Composer, Pianist); MARK RUBINSTEIN (Consulting Audio Engineer-Music; Male Voice); MAGGIE WATSON (Project Director, Theatrical Director, Playwright); DANIEL WU (Accompaniment-Violin); ISAIAH WU (Accompaniment-Cello).

Scene #2
SHEERS & CHEMISE

JACOB AUGENSTEIN (Project Manager-GP Creative); MONICA BAIN (Liaison, Facilitator); SETH BROWN (Editor-GP Creative); MELANIE COLBERT (Narrator); MATTHEW DANDRUFF (AV Technician); ANDREW DeWEESE (Accompaniment-Drums); KRISTINA D’ONOFRIO SWEAZY (Choreography); KELLY HURLBURT HINES (Fotini); MIKE MARRAH (Director of Photography-GP Creative); CHRISSY MARSEY (Logistics); TAYLOR McCLINTOCK (Film Director-GP Creative); DREW NDENGABAGANIZI (Lighting); ETHAN OURS (Accompaniment-Trombone); VINCE RESTIVO (Lighting); SHINE ROBISON (Composer, Pianist); MARK RUBINSTEIN (Consulting Audio Engineer), MAGGIE WATSON (Project Director, Theatrical Director, Playwright).

The Monologue.

The monologue is a scene that does not appear in the novel.
It can be thought of as an alternate ending to Fotini’s story.

RESISTING

JACOB AUGENSTEIN (Project Manager-GP Creative); MONICA BAIN (Liaison, Facilitator); SETH BROWN (Editor-GP Creative); MATTHEW DANDRUFF (AV Technician); KRISTINA D’ONOFRIO SWEAZY (Choreography); KELLY HURLBURT HINES (Fotini); KENZIE KUHN (Production Assistant-GP Creative); CHRISSY MARSEY (Logistics); TAYLOR McCLINTOCK (Film Director-GP Creative); ZACH MESSINA (Director of Photography-GP Creative); DREW NDENGABAGANIZI (Lighting); VINCE RESTIVO (Lighting); SHINE ROBISON (Composer, Pianist); MARK RUBINSTEIN (Consulting Audio Engineer-Music); MAGGIE WATSON (Project Director, Theatrical Director, Playwright).

The Story Behind The Story

The director of The Fotini Project met a woman while on a summer mission trip to Athens, Greece. The following is an account of that meeting and a brief introduction to the Project’s origins.

Our team convened for the first time, made fast acquaintances, and headed out to familiarize ourselves with the city and its transportation system. The seven of us boarded a crowded metro, scattering to take seats wherever they might be found. I sat in the back of the train next to a middle-aged Greek woman and participated in the conversation she was having with the person sitting in front of her.

After a time, our team leader, positioned at the front of the train, yelled back, “This is it, everyone! Hurry up—quickly, this is our stop.”

The train rolled slower, and I stood to exit.

“I enjoyed talking with you,” I said to the Greek woman. “I’m sorry—I never asked your name?”

Weary eyes looked back at me. “My name is Fotini,” she said, her accent thick.

“Fotini?” I repeated, as if to clarify.

“Yes, that’s right. It is easy to remember… it means light. But I have no light. No light in me. I am filled with dark.”

The train stopped; the doors opened. People were moving quickly about. I heard our team leader directing us again. “This is it, hurry up. Make sure we have everyone!”

Without ever saying another word to the tired woman who believed no light could live within her darkness, I stepped off the train that day in Athens.
A mistake, realized too late.
I put her name on every prayer list I could find. I searched for her face amid the other Greek faces. I begged God each morning for another chance to tell her about the Light, but I never saw her again.
I returned to the States in time for the fall semester. Fotini’s face stayed with me through every class and every meeting, as did the weight of my error. The description she had associated with her name—the absence of light—continued to align with my abrupt separation from her. Then I learned that the etymology of her name derives from Saint Photine, who is thought to be the Samaritan woman at the well from John’s Gospel. So once the semester was firmly underway, I set out to tell her story—the story of someone who could not only arrive at this description of herself, but who could also share that description so willingly with another.
Thus, what has now become The Fotini Project was born.
Prior to my time in Greece, I had worked, mostly in volunteer capacities, as an advocate for women and children. It occurred to me, while attempting to write Fotini’s story, that her description on the metro also aligned with the many survivor stories I had been witness to: the consequences of sexual trauma—the depth of the physical, intellectual, emotional, and social wounds—yet I had never before understood the depth of the spiritual wound. As if suddenly, the Fotini I had met that day commingled with my previous work to form something of a composite understanding of Fotini. And then, in an attempt to adequately reflect the totality of the subject, this composite Fotini evolved into a character named Fotini, a character I have now represented in a full-length manuscript—a case study in novel form—as well as in a theatrical adaptation and a monologue.
Though the Lord never granted me another opportunity to connect again with the Fotini I met that day in Greece, all the derivative work has been written for her, and for women like her, who mistakenly believe that they too must live within the darkness.