Performing New Lives

Teya Sepinuck is the founder and director of Theatre of Witness. For the past 26 years, she has been creating and producing Theatre of Witness projects with prisoners and their families, survivors and perpetrators of abuse, refugees, immigrants, elders, and those who have lived through war. In 1991, Teya founded 'TOVA – Artistic Projects for Social Change' through which she created and produced more than 40 original Theatre of Witness works. She has been the recipient of the Philadelphia Human Rights Award for Arts and Culture, a Local Hero Award from the Bank of America, as well as the Cultural Arts Award from Women's Way and the Mayor's Commission on Women. Her work has taken her to Poland and Northern Ireland, where she is currently engaged in her second two-year residency at the Playhouse in Derry/Londonderry, creating works with ex-combatants, members of security forces, survivors, witnesses, and those living with the intergenerational legacy of the 'Troubles.'

Acknowledgments. Foreword by Evelyn Ploumis-Devick. 1. Introduction. Jonathan Shailor, University of Wisconsin-Parkside. 2. "To Know My Deed": Finding Salvation Through Shakespeare. Laura Bates, Indiana State University. 3. Rehabilitation Through the Arts at Sing Sing: Drama in the Big House. Brent Buell, Rehabilitation Through the Arts. 4. 59 Places: Dance/Theatre in the Hampshire Jail. Amie Dowling, University of San Francisco. 5. Time In: Transforming Identity Inside and Out. Judy Dworin, Trinity College, Connecticut. 6. The Buckle on the Bible Belt. Jodi Jinks, ArtsAloud and Rude Mechanicals. 7. From the Meanest Creature: Theatre as a Vehicle for Change. Sharon Lajoie, freelance theatre artist and teacher. 8. Faith, Hope, and "Sweet Love Re-Membered": "Restoration" Theatre in Kansas Prisons. John McCabe-Juhnke, Bethel College, Kansas. 9. Fabulous Females: Secrets, Stories, and Hope: Guarding and Guiding Girls Beyond the Barbed Wire Fence. Meade Palidofsky, Storycatchers Theatre, Chicago. 10. Living with Life: The Theatre of Witness as a Model of Healing and Redemption. Teya Sepinuck, The Theatre of Witness. 11. Prison Theatre and the Promise of Reintegration. Jonathan Shailor. 12. Sculpting Empowerment: Theatre in a Juvenile Facility and Beyond. Julia Taylor, Prison Creative Arts. 13. The Keeper of the Keys. Curt L. Tofteland, Shakespeare Behind Bars. 14. Revisiting Sacred Spaces. Jean Trounstine, Middlesex Community College. 15. The Inmates, the Actors, the Characters, the Audience, and the Poet Are of Imagination All Compact. Agnes Wilcox, Prison Performing Arts. 16. "Their Minds Transfigured So Together": Imaginative Transformation and Transcendence in A Midsummer Night's Dream. Elizabeth Charlebois, St. Mary's College of Maryland. 17. A Conversation with the Authors: Prison Theatre Artists in Dialogue. The Contributors. Subject Index. Author Index.