Photography by John Toomey

 
Esther, an African American seamstress in 1905 New York, is a practical woman with quiet dreams. She hopes for lovely things— fine fabric, beautiful words, a loving touch, while supporting herself making exquisite negligees and corsets for women across the social strata. When a distant suitor reaches out through poignant and sensitive letters, her life changes. Through friendship, betrayal, and hope, she stitches herself a new life, a crazy quilt from the pieces, homely to look at but warming to the soul.  

  A young woman forced into a life of servitude by her cruel stepmother and self-centered stepsisters, who dreams of a better life. With the help of her fairy godmother, Cinderella is transformed into a princess and finds her prince. 

 Dionysus, the god of wine, prophecy, religious ecstasy, and fertility, returns to his birthplace in Thebes in order to clear his mother's name and to punish the insolent city state for refusing to allow people to worship him. The background to his return is presented in the prologue, in which Dionysus tells the story of his mother, Semele, once a princess in the royal Theban house of Cadmus. She had an affair with Zeus, the king of the gods, and became pregnant. He managed, however, to rescue his unborn son Dionysus and stitched the baby into his thigh. Semele's family claimed that she had been struck by lightning for lying about Zeus and that her child, the product of an illicit human affair, had died with her, maligning her name and rejecting the young god Dionysus. 

Photography by Anne M. Peterson

Photography by John Toomey

Photography by Helene Clehr