[NEohioPAL] erratum in Kulchur Notes

[Skip Corris]

Gosh, what an exciting discussion!

I'd like to offer a view from a different perspective – behind bars.

As some people on this list know, I work every day inside prison walls. I
teach pre-GED programs at Northeast Pre-Release Center, a women's prison
right here in Cleveland. I am also a certified Crisis/Hostage Negotiator.

The women I work with are incarcerated for murder, rape, arson etc. (and --
lest those of you who grew up in the sixties and seventies think that my
inmates are too far removed from your lives – for possession of certain
herbal products that many of our generation possessed with impunity).

Anyway – on the compound where I work, some of the inmates have discovered
theatre as a means of re-establishing contact with a side of themselves they
had long drowned in drugs, alcohol, and mayhem. I have been fortunate to
sometimes facilitate an inmate-driven program which uses theatre to explore
their humanity – with the idea that the more they realize that they are
connected to the rest of humanity, the less they are likely to go out and
reoffend. Working mostly from books about theatre, they have divided the
program into eight or nine segments, dealing with characterization,
interpretation, personalization (sort of a Fairmount Theatre Program in
orange jumpsuits!)

(Major props here to Terrence Spivey, Artistic director of Karamu, who has
come onto the compound to share his expertise.)

Every few months, the inmates put on a show, usually something written and
directed by one of their number, with street references and relevant only to
their lives. It may not be what we "purists" are used to, but it is
heartfelt and goes back to the original roots of theatre – making meaning
out of the chaos of life.

In addition to this program, I also incorporate theatricality into my daily
lessons (today, for example, we all "went to lunch" at a restaurant (without
leaving the security of the classroom), ordered from the menu, and totaled
the bill with tax and tip (it was a math lesson). My pre-GED (meaning that
they do not have their high school diplomas) students also read – out loud
with expression – Poe, O. Henry, and even Kafka, Chekhov, and Shakespeare.
AND BY "DOING IT" THEY "GET" IT!

To this day, no one who has participated in the theatre program has yet
returned to prison. Only one has gone to the "hole" (solitary), and many
have gained an appreciation that there is more in life than they had thus
far experienced.

Bringing theatre to the incarcerated has enriched their lives (as well as
mine). For example, a student who can barely read or write can recount
vividly the play she saw as a sixth grader at Karamu or the Playhouse. Some
even tell stories of plays they have participated in. One inmate had her
mother send the newspaper clippings of a NUTCRACKER I did way out in
Norwalk, promising that, "Next year, when I'm out, I'll come see it myself
with my kids."

The point is, theatre is a powerful means of celebrating what is human in
humanity, and no matter how old, or to what depth (according to our
standards) a person may have descended, inside us there is still a need and
a cry for something that maintains, uplifts, and enriches as human beings.

Sometimes when I'm dreaming of the best possible outcomes of the life I am
living, I think that if more of these inmates -- and their daughters and
their sons -- had theatre as a means of connecting with their own humanity,
my roles – both as prison teacher and Hostage Negotiator -- would never be
needed.

Live theate --we can't let it die.
Skip Corris

On 2/12/08, Robert Hawkes <rhhawkes at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> That phrase should read "NOT the Best WE Can Be, but the Most We Can
> Make".
>
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