Community Corner | Crossroads: The Journey of Re-Becoming
Most of us don't know what really happens inside the foster care system. That's not an accident: t's by design.
That's the message Lara Smedley, CEO of Better Together Productions, and Shari F. Shink, founder and executive director of Cobbled Streets, shared with SugaBear & La Molly during Community Corner. Lara and Shari shared something big: a two-night immersive theatrical experience called Crossroads: The Journey of Re-Becoming, running on April 30 and May 1 at Denver's Sports Castle.
The show follows Jaden, a fictional 14-year-old navigating the foster care system. His story is drawn from real life experiences, including content from Better Together's Emmy Award-winning documentary Re-Becoming Me, which spotlighted five individuals who had been through the system firsthand. The play is an extension of that work, but instead of watching a screen, audiences walk through it.
All three floors of Sports Castle become part of the story. The first floor places the audience in a courtroom where Jaden is asked to choose between his foster parent and his biological father. The second floor brings the audience into a foster home for something as simple, and yet as complicated, as a birthday party. The third floor is where hope lives. Jaden, now an adult, opens his first art show on that floor and is surrounded by the people who shaped his journey – for better or worse.
The point of Crossroads: The Journey of Re-Becoming isn't to make people feel bad. It's to make them feel something, and then do something.
Shari has spent nearly 50 years fighting for kids in the system. She'll be the first to tell you that the government can't raise children. She believes what these kids need are stable relationships, familiar faces, and people who show up consistently. On average, kids in foster care move four or five times. They age through trauma while the rest of the world looks the other way, largely because the system is confidential by design.
"People operate on assumptions," Shari said. "Whatever the notion is, it's rarely the truth."
So, what can regular people actually do? Quite a bit, it turns out. Individuals interested in helping out can volunteer with Cobbled Streets, become a foster parent, sign up to be a CASA volunteer (an advocate who shows up for kids in courtrooms), or talk to their legislators and keep the conversation going.
Lara described it well: Discomfort isn't a bad thing. It's how we grow, and this show is designed to be a safe place to do exactly that. May 1 is specifically a community night, meaning that it’s open to everyone. For tickets and full details, visit crossroads.cobbledstreets.org.
