Twelve chairs sit on the stage, the actors staying in them until it’s their time to step up and speak. However, the actors do not perform a scene by speaking to each other; instead, they tell their stories directly to the audience.

This is the basis of “110 Stories”, a play by Sarah Tuft that tells the accounts of actual people that were involved in the World Trade Center attacks on September 11th, 2001, including NYPD, the fire department, EMTs, people inside the towers, people in buildings adjacent to the towers, and even homeless people who were around the towers at the time.

“I realized that many students in the building were born after 9/11 and didn’t know many of the details of those events,” says Ms. Messias, who is the one putting on the play for Cherry Hill West Lab Theatre. “I liked the idea of telling an oral history of such a significant event in our country’s history.”

The play is a series of monologues detailing the experiences of those who actually experienced the tragedy of 9/11, with some of the actual people reaching out to the actors portraying them. “Yacob Ismael reached out to his character Bolivar Arellano and was able to get his perspective on the events of 9/11,” Messias says. “Many of the other actors were able to Google their characters and find information that was helpful in creating the reality needed for this production.

Showtimes are February 8th and 9th, at 7:00 PM, with a $5 admission. After the performance on Friday, members of the community who were at Ground Zero the day of 9/11 will be at West to discuss their personal experiences.