About Me

A Woman of Dignity & Grace

Friday, March 27, 2009

Call Me Crazy-Dairy of a Mad Social Worker




This one women’s show was great-written and performed by Helena D. Lewis. Helena let us into her work of being an overworked and underpaid social worker. It began when she graduated from college with a degree in biology; she landed her first gig at a drug treatment center teaching HIV/AIDS awareness classes. She moved on to working with men with HIV, prostitutes , women in halfway homes, teaching male inmates about HIV and sex education in the New Jersey Correctional Facility – She is as young as 27 and no older than 32. Can you imagine? She had been followed home, called in on her day off to break-up bloody fights, walked to the track to take ladies home and held her tongue due to patient confidentiality to significant others who’s lovers where infected with HIV.
Helena mastered over 25 different characters she met in her line of work. She shook us with laughter and almost brought us to tears. She laced her performance with skits of her bone chilling poetry that left you understanding her plight- she slowly lost her older brother to HIV and her younger brother to drugs and the streets.
Her story was sincere, intimate and real. I gave it 3 snaps and a twist of the head. We’ll definitely see Ms. Helena either on the stage or the big screen.
It was an excellent way to spend time with my sister-friends. The play was at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe and we followed it with a great Thai dinner in this wonderful restaurant around the corner.

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