Actors Gang Prison Project Meets with U.S. Attorney General

Actors Gang Artistic Director, Tim Robbins, and Director of Outreach, Sabra Williams were invited to Washington to meet with U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. The discussion revolved around how to make arts education part of a transformed and transformational approach to corrections.

Chris Hedges: The Play’s the Thing - Truthdig

I began teaching a class of 28 prisoners at a maximum-security prison in New Jersey during the first week of September. My last class meeting was Friday. The course revolved around plays by August Wilson, James Baldwin, John Herbert, Tarell Alvin McCraney, Miguel Piñero, Amiri Baraka and other playwrights who examine and give expression to the realities of America’s black underclass as well as the prison culture. We also read Michelle Alexander’s important book “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness.” Each week the students were required to write dramatic scenes based on their experiences in and out of prison. 
                                                                                                           ~ Chris Hedges, 12-15-13


Click here to read the full essay on Truthdig

Storycatchers Theatre Honored by Michelle Obama

Band of Brothers

BAND OF BROTHERS 

The Prison Theatre Initiative of the Education Justice Project (EJP) 

University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

EJP’s Theatre Initiative provides EJP students opportunity to stage performances and learn theatre craft. The first performance, titled Our Play, was in January 2012. Directed by UIUC faculty member Carol Symes, Our Play was a powerful collection of scenes from Shakespeare plays that touched upon themes of vengeance, forgiveness, and community. The second production, in April 2013, was of Shakespeare’s The Tempest. The members of the Theatre Initiative are currently working on Julius Caesar, which they hope to perform in spring 2014.

http://www.educationjustice.net/home/programs/theatre-initiative/ 

Please contact Carol Symes at symes@illinois.edu for more information.