I would sit in the yard in the pouring rain all night to hear you do that play again.
Etty Performances in Prisons
Many incarcerated people watching a performance of Etty have not seen a piece of live theater before, yet they find themselves engaged in Etty's questions about life, death, ethical dilemmas, love, and justice. The discussion following each performance fosters collective sharing about freedom, mortality and one's relationship to God.
Etty Project Leads Educational and Theatrical Programs in Prisons
Teaching Artists work with incarcerated persons on reading and writing workshops to help them find their voices, author their lives, and share their stories aloud. Participants develop performance and presentation skills to bring their memoir pieces to life on stage.
Performing History: Police Officers with Formerly and Currently Incarcerated Men
Inside and outside come together to write, give feedback, and edit each other’s work. Every session becomes a spoken word performance, bringing together those who would not normally be in the same room–formerly incarcerated men, incarcerated men, police officers, undergraduate and graduate students–with theater as the shared space to work towards police justice.
Shared Writing: An Outreach Workshop to Build Bridges
Etty Project creates an unlikely community between formerly incarcerated men in conversation with members of the 92nd Street Y in NYC. Sharing personal writings, participants find common ground as they respond to each other’s work and prepare for a public reading to reach a larger audience.
The discussion led by Susan afterwards was exceptional in that everyone contributed; staff and prisoner alike… and, for a few hours it felt like we were in a different place talking and sharing with each other personally, at a level of maturity and disclosure way beyond the normal confines of jail-speak. In a sense it is not correct to call it a one-woman-show since the audience were so involved in the overall delivery (in both parts: the play itself and the discussion afterwards). All credit to Susan and those responsible for bringing this to HMP Perth. I’m sure Etty herself would be pleased.
Correctional Facilities Etty Project Has Visited
Maine Women’s Correctional Center; Massachusetts Correctional Institute (MCI)-Framingham; Mission Creek Correctional Center for Women; Her Majesty’s Prison (HM) Prison Barlinnie; HM Prison Edinburgh; HM Cornton Vale Prison; HM Prison Greenock; HM Prison Perth; HM Prison Dumfries; HM Low Moss Prison; HM Shotts Prison; Minnesota Correctional Facility-Stillwater; Minnesota Correctional Facility-Shakopee; Rikers Island Correctional Center; HM Prison Bronzefield; Women’s Eastern Diagnostic and Correctional Center; HM Prison Glenochil; HM Castle Prison Huntley; Riverbend Maximum Security Institution; Allegheny County Jail; State Correctional Institution-Fayette; Western State Penitentiary (SCI); California Institution for Women (CIW); Northeast Correctional Center (NECC)-Bowling Green