Stephen Waldschmidt

In 2010, Waldschmidt attended a presentation by Andrew Kooman in Strathmore about human trafficking.[1] The location of Kooman's presentation was Waldschmidt's home church.[8] Kooman mentioned She Has a Name, a play that he had written about human trafficking, and Waldschmidt soon asked Kooman for permission to read the script.[1] Waldschmidt felt drawn to address the issue of human trafficking even before discovering She Has a Name[2] and had gotten involved with some fair trade initiatives. Waldschmidt attested to his feet sweating after having first read the script[8] and said that it was one of only two scripts that he had ever read that he could not put down before finishing.[9] Nonetheless, he initially backed off from the play because of the immensity and ugliness of the issue. Eventually, however, he and Kooman worked together on the script,[1] expanding it to a full-length play with an extra hour's worth of material by the end of 2010,[10] resulting in a play that can be performed in ninety minutes[11] but may last up to two hours.[12] Kooman and Waldschmidt were moved to continue working on the play because of worldwide human trafficking statistics; namely, that 800000 people are trafficked across international borders each year, that there are 10 million children forced to work in the sex industry, that 1 million of these are child prostitutes, and that sex traffickers have an average annual income of $280000 per victim.[13] Waldschmidt directed the premiere of She Has a Name,[14] a performance for which he also served as scenic designer.[15] He was also the director for the 2012 tour of She Has a Name.[16]