RESOURCES and FURTHER INFORMATION: If you have suggestions/additions for this list, please let me know. This is ever growing.
Theatre programs working with justice-involved populations:
Readings/Books on arts inside prisons:
Challenging the Prison Industrial Complex: Activism, Arts, and Educational Alternatives edited by Stephen John Hartnett
Performing New Lives: Prison Theater, edited by Jonathan Shailor
America Is the Prison: Arts and politics in Prison in the 1970s, Lee Bernstein
American Theatre's 2019 special issue on Theatre in Prison
Prison Theatre and the Crisis of Incarceration, by Ashley E. Lucas
Prison Industrial Complex:
Books:
Are Prisons Obselete? by Angela Davis
The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
With Liberty for Some: 500 Years of Imprisonment in America by Scott Christianson
Going up the River: Travels in a Prison Nation by Joseph T. Hallinan
Foundations and Organizations:
Prison Activist Groups:
Critical Resistance
Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice
All of Us or None
Experiences of teachers/volunteers inside prisons:
Disguised as a Poem: My Years Teaching Poetry Inside San Quentin by Judith Tannenbaum
Teaching the Arts Behind Bars edited by Rachel Marie-Crane Williams
Crossing the Yard: Thirty Years as a Prison Volunteer by Richard Shelton
Reentry/Homecoming
When Prisoners Come Home: Parole and Prisoner Reentry by Joan Petersilia
All Alone in the World: Children of the Incarcerated by Nell Bernstein.
Theatre programs working with justice-involved populations:
- The Actors’ Gang Prison Project: Culver City, Calif. (310) 838-4264
- And Still We Rise: Boston (857) 719-3884
- The Artistic Ensemble San Quentin, Calif.
- Arts in Prison Overland Park, Kan. (913) 403-0229
- The Bridging Boundaries Intervention Program Judy Dworin Performance Project Hartford, Conn.
- California Arts in Corrections: Sacramento, Calif. (916) 322-6371
- Children’s Prison Arts Project: Harris County, Texas (713) 520-7661
- Drama Club: Jackson Heights, NY
- Engaged Theatre Residencies: Freehold Theatre Lab/Studio, Seattle (206) 323-7499
- Ensemble Play in Cook County Jail (EPIC): Piven Theatre Workshop Evanston, Ill. (847) 866-6597
- Out of the Yard: Playwrights Project, San Diego, Calif.(858) 384-2970
- Pelican Bay Prison Project: Dell’Arte International Blue Lake, Calif. (707) 668-5663
- Phoenix Players Theatre Group: Auburn, N.Y.
- Prison Arts Project: The William James Association, Santa Cruz, Calif. (831) 607-8952
- Prison Performing Arts: St. Louis (314) 289-4190
- Plays Across Prison Walls: Potsdam, NY
- The Redeeming Time Project: Minneapolis
- Reflecting Shakespeare: The Old Globe, San Diego (619) 231-1941
- Reforming Arts: Atlanta (678) 689-8263
- Rehabilitation Through the Arts: Purchase, N.Y. (914) 232-7566
- Ritual 4 Return: Kevin Bott, Bronx, NY (646)-783-8019
- Serving Life: Hidden Voices Cedar Grove, N.C.
- Shakespeare Behind Bars: The Shakespeare Theatre Association, Macatawa, Mich.
- Shakespeare in Prison: Marin Shakespeare Company, San Rafael, Calif. (415) 499-1492
- Shakespeare in Prisons: Detroit Public Theatre
- Shakespeare Prison Project: Kenosha, Wisc.
- Shakespeare in the Courts: Shakespeare & Co. Lenox, Mass. (413) 637-1199
- Shakespeare in the Courts Chicago: Invictus Theatre Co Chicago (773) 570-0649
- Shining Light Ministries: Annville, Pa. (717) 867-5472
- Stargate Theatre: New York City (212) 399-3000
- Stella Adler Studio of Acting at Rikers Island: New York City (212) 689-0087
- Storycatchers Theatre: Chicago, (312) 280-4772
- Ten Thousand Things Theatre Company: Minneapolis (612) 203-9502
- Transforming Kids Behind Bars: Each One, Reach One San Francisco (650) 225-9030
- Voices Unbarred: Washington, D.C. (571) 357-2049
Readings/Books on arts inside prisons:
Challenging the Prison Industrial Complex: Activism, Arts, and Educational Alternatives edited by Stephen John Hartnett
Performing New Lives: Prison Theater, edited by Jonathan Shailor
America Is the Prison: Arts and politics in Prison in the 1970s, Lee Bernstein
American Theatre's 2019 special issue on Theatre in Prison
Prison Theatre and the Crisis of Incarceration, by Ashley E. Lucas
Prison Industrial Complex:
Books:
Are Prisons Obselete? by Angela Davis
The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
With Liberty for Some: 500 Years of Imprisonment in America by Scott Christianson
Going up the River: Travels in a Prison Nation by Joseph T. Hallinan
Foundations and Organizations:
- Founded in 1986, The Sentencing Project works for a fair and effective U.S. criminal justice system by promoting reforms in sentencing policy, addressing unjust racial disparities and practices, and advocating for alternatives to incarceration.
- Equal Justice Initiative is a private, nonprofit organization that challenges poverty and racial injustice, advocates for equal treatment in the criminal justice system, and creates hope for marginalized communities.
- The non-profit, non-partisan Prison Policy Initiative produces cutting edge research to expose the broader harm of mass criminalization, and then sparks advocacy campaigns to create a more just society.
- For almost 100 years, the ACLU has worked to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed by the Constitution and laws of the United States
Prison Activist Groups:
Critical Resistance
Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice
All of Us or None
Experiences of teachers/volunteers inside prisons:
Disguised as a Poem: My Years Teaching Poetry Inside San Quentin by Judith Tannenbaum
Teaching the Arts Behind Bars edited by Rachel Marie-Crane Williams
Crossing the Yard: Thirty Years as a Prison Volunteer by Richard Shelton
Reentry/Homecoming
When Prisoners Come Home: Parole and Prisoner Reentry by Joan Petersilia
All Alone in the World: Children of the Incarcerated by Nell Bernstein.