By Jared M. Swain
Baltimore Watchdog Staff Writer
The bitter, February morning air whipped across the Hampton National Historic Site in Towson as the Baltimore School for the Arts Sophomore Ensemble piled out of the bus.
Eagar to escape the cold and start the dress rehearsal, Norah Worthington, the resident costume designer for the Baltimore School for the Arts, directed the students to the orangery, the west wing and the grand hall of the Hampton Mansion.
“What’s most exciting about this project is that the students are performing history,” Worthington said. “It makes it even more meaningful when you are in the very house where those people lived and worked.”

The ensemble will bring history to life in the rooms of the Hampton Mansion and the orangery at 2 p.m. Feb. 20 when it performs “Finding the Story: Confronting the Past,” a free, first come, first serve performance of three 10-minute plays that explore Hampton’s history as a slavery plantation during the 18th and 19th century.
The show is being done to celebrate Black History Month. The ensemble has performed in assembly for BSA students and will perform in matinees for children at various Baltimore City schools throughout February.
“I did see some of their work at an assembly,” said Donald Hicken, the theatre department head for BSA. “It was strong, incredible work. They have a lot of credibility.”
The BSA Sophomore Ensemble consists of 25 students: 14 actors and 11 production students. The project is a part of the BSA curriculum, so the students rehearse during class time at BSA as well as at Hampton NHS.

According to the BSA website, the performance is part of an outreach historical partnership with the National Parks Service. Worthington is the partnership’s coordinator.
“Stage design and production sophomores work throughout the fall semester using primary sources and visits to Hampton and the Maryland Historical Society,” Worthington said. “This year we focused on how we can uncover the stories of people that are usually left out of the history books.”
These stories include free slaves who lived on the plantation and slaves who worked for the family living in the Hampton Mansion. To piece together those stories, the students used “diaries, account books, oral histories, and legal documents involving the enslaved of Hampton,” Worthington said.
Faculty playwrights, including Worthington and Natalie Pilcher, wrote the scripts based on the students’ research and ideas. However, writing the scripts is a challenge because of the students’ ethnicity and gender.
“We have to write for the kids that we have,” Worthington said. “Our student population is as diverse as the population of Baltimore was in the past.”
Acting faculty member Tony Tsendeas commended the ensemble for its work on the project.
“I have been pleased with how professional they are,” said Tsendeas, who directs the plays along with Richard Pilcher and Denise Diggs. “I have to remind myself that they are only teenagers.”
Tsendeas also spoke highly of Worthington’s efforts to put on the production.
“Norah takes the bulls by the horn. She gets it done,” Tsendeas said.
There have been many conversations with the students, directors and playwrights about the production’s material and its importance.
“In light of recent events in our city, there is a renewed urgency to understand something about how and why we as a community got here,” Worthington said. “Attitudes and assumptions about the past can be seriously challenged when you look at the documents concerning real people.”
Worthington specifically recalled a conversation she had with the class about “race as identity.”
“One of the characters in our plays is a mixed race descendant of a Baltimore County slave holding family,” Worthington said. “The students talked about how they feel about mixed race, and the social expectation of identifying with one race. Talking about identity and ‘human race’ with each other was awkward and sometimes challenging, but as artists, our focus always comes back to empathy.”
With these plays, Worthington hopes to present true American history and change perspectives about that history.
“Attitudes and assumptions about the past can be seriously challenged when you look at the documents concerning real people,” Worthington said.
The Hampton National Historic Site is located at 535 Hampton Lane in Towson