• ARTS & CULTURE • Former inmates tell ‘Stories from the Inside/Out’ By Bliss Bowen Pasadena Weekly Contributing Writer
“A
ll that you touch You Change. All that you Change Changes you. The only lasting truth Is Change.” —Octavia E. Butler, “Parable of the Sower” Committed to the principle that “every human being has a story to tell,” TheatreWorkers Project has been fostering a powerful form of documentary theater since 1983 that helps current and former inmates tell their stories through writing, choreographed movement and music. In partnership with the Francisco Homes, a residential re-entry program in South LA for men on parole from serving life sentences, TWP is presenting a new piece funded by grants from the California Arts Council, “Phoenix: Stories from the Inside/Out,” this Saturday at A Noise Within. In contrast to the solo or verbatim brand of documentary theater popularized by Tony Award- and Pulitzer Prize-nominated actress/writer Anna Deavere Smith, who interviews hundreds of people and then portrays all the characters in her plays, “Phoenix: Stories from the Inside/Out” is a collaborative work delivered onstage by six formerly incarcerated men. According to TWP creator Susan Franklin Tanner, the material was developed from poetry and prose five of the men composed over seven weeks of writing, exploration, and improvisational exercises. Their writing prompts included a quote from late Pasadena novelist Octavia Butler’s “Parable of the Sower” and a question: “What were you in the past and what have you become, and how did that happen?” Gradually, a theme emerged from their workshops of rebirth and change. Volunteer Bonnie Banfield, an Iowa-based playwright, then fit all the men’s writings together in a narrative arc. One piece in particular gave the finished “Phoenix” script its title — about a participant’s decision to have a big phoenix tattooed on his back while he was behind bars, because the tattoos he’d entered prison with no longer represented who he was. Visual projections will augment the theme behind the men’s staged readings, as will a soundscape created by Dwight Krizman, a former San Quentin inmate who has continued performing with the Americana pop band he formed there, Quentin Blue. “We never ask any participant with whom we work what crime they committed, how long they were incarcerated, what they did to get out. These things will often come out during the workshops, but we feel those pieces of information are their stories to tell,” Franklin Tanner explains. “We really work with the person who’s right in front of us in the room at that time, as who they are. TheatreWorkers Project is dedicated to the belief that every single human being can create a work of art. We make it very clear at the beginning of the workshops … we are there to collaborate with them as artists and to uplift their artistry.” If they provide a cautionary tale to audiences, especially youth (“A lot of these guys are saying, ‘That one bad decision, that split-second decision — if I had made a different decision, my life would have been different,’” Franklin Tanner notes), the project offers them cathartic healing. Franklin Tanner says one man she worked with previously at a Lancaster prison told her, “When I was doing this work, I got to feel human for a few moments every single week.” A classically trained actress, Franklin Tanner first did a theater workshop in prison under the auspices of the now-defunct Living Stage Company in Washington, D.C., of which she was a member in her 20s. “That really impacted my understanding of the importance of working with communities that had powerful stories to tell and that were isolated from the rest of the world,” she recalled. Documentary theater was not a known form when she created TWP in 1983 and started taking writing workshops and plays into prisons. After arts programs were taken out of California prisons in the ’90s, TWP continued working in the community with unemployed steel workers, striking meat packers, ship builders and immigrant workers. Franklin Tanner said she hadn’t worked much with formerly incarcerated individuals until TWP partnered with the nonprofit organization Dad’s Back Academy in 2016 and the Francisco Homes in 2017. “One of the most common denominators for all of the people with whom we work — it’s not always the case, but almost always — is that they’ve been incarcerated since they’ve been teenagers.”
Most had served at least 20 years in prison — others 30 to 40 years — before their life sentences were commuted or they were granted parole. Some, she said, were given life sentences under the three-strikes law for offenses that would now be considered misdemeanors. “I have found that somebody who has done so much work to be found suitable for parole is an incredibly self-actualized person — much more so than the typical person walking down the street,” Franklin Tanner said. “Unless you’re in analysis for 20 years, how many people have to really mine the depths of their souls and their histories to come to terms with who they are, what they’ve done and where they want to be in the future? “Doing work in prison and with the re-entry population has been the most impactful and satisfying work that I have ever done as an artist in community-based work. To me, it’s all about breaking the isolation and honoring the artistry of people who are marginalized and unheard.”
“Phoenix: Stories from the Inside/Out” WHEN: 4 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, June 4 WHERE: A Noise Within’s John & Barbara Lawrence Hall, 3352 E. Foothill Boulevard, Pasadena COST: Tickets start at $5 INFO: 626-356-3100, anoisewithin.org, theatreworkersproject.org. Audience members must show proof of full vaccination (and, if over 18, photo ID), and masks are required.
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