Situation Project Developing Documentary Following One Student From the South Bronx to Broadway

Playbill has partnered with Inspired to create and amplify stories of inspiration that advocate for access to arts and cultural experiences for young people across the country. The following article is written by the team at Situation Project and adapted from their online publication Inspired. Click here to learn more.

An Ordinary Day

On the afternoon Situation Project spent filming at MS 343 Academy of Applied Mathematics & Technology in the South Bronx, the cameras weren't pointed at anything remarkable. Students boarded a subway, teachers counted heads, and someone held a Playbill she hadn't opened yet. That's the movie.

One Train Ride, One Block at a Time

The MS 343 Matinee Project—directed by Jeremy St. Romain and produced by Samara Berger, Eliza Palter, and Damian Bazadona—follows one MS 343 student as she travels from her neighborhood in the South Bronx to Hell's Kitchen on Broadway, a musical whose story of New York ambition and self-invention ends up having much in common with the student’s journey. The film runs through a single afternoon: the train ride, Times Square, the theatre lobby, the seat.

What it deliberately skips is the performance itself. The filmmakers stayed out of the house during the show, a decision that reflects the project's larger instinct—to be present without being extractive.

"When a young person walks into a Broadway theatre for the first time, you can see it in their posture, in their stillness, in their questions afterward," says Berger, who also serves as Executive Director of Situation Project. "We wanted to honor that moment without turning it into the overt message."

A Decade of Groundwork, One Day on Camera

Situation Project has spent more than a decade organizing student matinees, post-show workshops, and school partnerships across New York City's public school system. The documentary grew out of that extensive work, not as a summary of it, but as a record of one day inside it.

St. Romain's approach kept the crew small and the camera at a distance. The result is a film made up of glances and margins: the subway, a student reading the cast list, the particular quiet of a theatre before the lights drop.

Bazadona describes the project's goal simply: "We're interested in showing what it looks like when students and artists briefly share the same space and the same moment. That's the story."

The Show Had Something to Do With It

Hell's Kitchen was a deliberate choice. The show's setting—mid-'90s New York, a young woman trying to figure out who she is—gave the field trip a specificity that a different Broadway production might not have. Berger draws our attention to what a field trip can become: "A field trip is exposure, a widening of perspectives. hen students see themselves reflected onstage, that's when belonging begins."

Where It Goes From Here

The film will be submitted to the 2027 festival circuit, with a focus on documentary, cultural, and New York–based festivals.

For the students, the matinee was an afternoon. The film depicts what an afternoon can hold.

Inspired was created by Situation Project 501(c)3.