Applied Practice: Evidence and Impact in Theatre, Music and Art (Applied Theatre)

265 Pages·2017·2.073 MB·English

Applied Th eatre:
Women and the Criminal
Justice System
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Th e A pplied Th eatre series is a major innovation in applied theatre
scholarship, bringing together leading international scholars that engage
with and advance the fi eld of applied theatre. Each book presents new ways
of seeing and critically refl ecting on this dynamic and vibrant fi eld. Volumes
off er a theoretical framework and introductory survey of the fi eld addresses,
combined with a range of case studies illustrating and critically engaging
with practice.
https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/series/applied- theatre/
Series Editors
Michael Balfour (University of New South Wales, Australia)
Sheila Preston (University of East London, UK)
Selected Titles
Applied Practice: Evidence and Impact in Th eatre, Music and Art
Matthew Reason and Nick Rowe
ISBN 978-1-4742-8383-0
Applied Th eatre: Economies
Molly Mullen
ISBN 978-1-3500-0170-1
Applied Th eatre: Performing Health and Wellbeing
Veronica Baxter and Katharine E. Low
ISBN 978-1-4725-8457-1
Applied Th eatre: Research Radical Departures
Peter O’Connor and Michael Anderson
ISBN 978-1-4725-0961-1
ii
Applied Th eatre:
Women and the Criminal
Justice System
Caoimhe McAvinchey
Series Editors
Michael Balfour and Sheila Preston
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METHUEN DRAMA
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First published in Great Britain 2020

Copyright © Caoimhe McAvinchey and contributors, 2020

Caoimhe McAvinchey has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs
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iv
For my grandmother, Brigid Murtagh (1916–2018)
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Contents
Notes on Contributors ix
Acknowledgements xiii
Introduction Caoimhe McAvinchey 1
Wicked (1991) 35
1 Interplay: Tracing Personal and Political Transformation through
Popular Participatory Th eatre in Westville Female Correctional
Centre, Durban, South Africa M iranda Young-Jahangeer 37
‘Four Walls’, Voices from Prison (1987) 56
2 ‘Th ey Pink Dress Ain’t Done Shit’: Sex, Dress and Q uare
Activism in a Women’s Gulf Coast Prison L isa L. Biggs 57
Decade (1984) 77
3 Daughters of the Floating Brothel: Engaging Indigenous
Australian Women Prisoners through Participatory Radio
Drama Sarah Woodland 79
‘I am a theatre’, V oices from Prison (1987) 105
4 What Works: Th e Aff ective and Gendered Performance
of Prison Aylwyn Walsh 107
Extract I from Inside Bitch (2019) 124
5 Possible Fictions: Split Britches, Biography and Fantasy with
Women in Prison C aoimhe McAvinchey 125
Extract I from Killers (1980) 141
6 Th eatre as Collective Casework: Clean Break Th eatre
Company’s Charged (2010) M olly McPhee 143
‘Prison Loves, Prison Hates’, Voices from Prison (1987) 162
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viii Contents
7 Somebody’s Daughter Th eatre Company: Th e Arts –
Unapologetically Transcendent M aud Clark AM 163
Extract II from Killers (1980) 171
8 Th e Meeting Place: Collaborative Learning in a
University–Prison Partnership Rachel Conlon 173
Extract II from Inside Bitch (2019) 187
9 Acting Out: An Interview with Sherrin Fitzer Ashley Lucas 189
Inside a Cloud (2016) 196
10 ‘Th ere Is Still Life in Me, Despite What I Have Done’:
Assuaging Woundedness through Collective Creativity
Katharine E. Low and Clara Vaughan 197
‘Dirty Rule Makers’, V oices from Prison (1987) 216
11 Th e Stella Adler Studio Outreach Programme at the Rose M.
Singer Center for Women at Rikers Island Correctional Facility:
An Interview with Joanne Edelmann and Tom Oppenheim
Caoimhe McAvinchey 217
21.23.6.15 (2018) 226
12 In Th eir Shoes: Participation, Social Change and Empathy in
Open Clasp’s K ey Change Kay Hepplewhite 229
Index 245
Contributors
Lisa L. Biggs , PhD, is an actress, playwright and performance scholar. She
serves as an assistant professor at Brown University in the Department of
Africana Studies/Rites and Reason Th eatre. Her research investigates the role
of the arts in movements for social justice, in particular the impact of theatre
programmes for women incarcerated in the US and in South Africa. Her
articles and essays have been published in Th eatre Survey , B lack Acting
Methods: Critical Approaches and Solo/Black/Woman: Scripts, Interviews,
Essays .
Maud Clark. As co- founder Artistic Director of Somebody’s Daughter
Th eatre, Maud has been the principal director and writer of many highly
successful theatre works both inside and outside the prison. She won the Ewa
Czajor Memorial Award for Directing and the Australia Council’s Ros Bower
Award for contribution to Community Arts. Maud was made a member of
the Order of Australia in 2006 and an Honorary Fellow, Melbourne University
Victorian College of the Arts in 2007. In recent years, Maud has been a lead
artist in SDT’s ground breaking arts led work with Education and Health
where the arts become the bridge to education and inclusion for young
people aged between the ages of twelve and seventeen years who are outside
of the formal education system, most with histories of abuse and homelessness.
Th is has led to the inception of SDT’s offi cial off spring’s – HighWater Th eatre
in Albury/Wodonga and Nobody’s Fool Th eatre Geelong.
Rachel Conlon is Director of the Prison Partnership Project and Senior
Lecturer in Th eatre at York St John University. She specializes in socially
engaged theatre practice, and theatre and criminal justice. Her practice
investigates women’s personal and collective narratives and explores the
relationship women navigate between the inside and outside of prison. Her
work is driven by a social justice and feminist agenda taking a therapeutic
and empowering approach in its process and delivery. Rachel has worked for
over twenty years in criminal justice settings.
Joanne Edelmann was a modern dancer for over twenty years, touring and
performing with many modern dance theatres, including the companies of
Charles Weidman and Mimi Garrard. She joined the Stella Adler Studio’s
movement faculty in 1984 where she ran the Teenage Conservatory and was
the Director of Student Aff airs for over thirteen years. Edelmann curates the
Harold Clurman Poetry Reading Series bringing poets and writers from
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