Performance
Site-specific theater gives formerly incarcerated persons the opportunity to redefine their role in a community where they feel they do not belong.
Community Ownership & Place Making
Integrating Formerly Incarcerated PersonsSuccessful reentry happens when the person reentering believes that they have a place and a role in their community. The workshops support the formerly incarcerated population by giving them the tools to reevaluate their relationship to their past while giving them a new relationship to law enforcement. The site-specific theater gives them the chance to take ownership of the place where they live. No longer inmates, they are community members who support the growth of their neighborhood.
Accountability
Participating in Theater for Humanity means that the participants know how their past actions influenced and determined their past. This transformation is shared through the performed story for the whole community.
Acceptance
The performances contain the stories of the formerly incarcerated and they symbolize their acceptance. They know that they are heard, valued and accepted back into the community. They now have the tools to continue to tell their stories.
A New Role
After completing Theater for Humanity, the formerly incarcerated participant has a new role: community leader and ambassador of a new way of thinking that promotes reconciliation.
A New Culture
Formerly incarcerated persons who complete the program come to the site specific performances with knowledge and wisdom and they can share those lessons with the community so that others may hear and learn from their past. This creates a new culture where the participants use their experience as a means to influence others to make different choices.
Bringing Stories of Reconciliation to those Who need it the Most
Humanizing Police Officers Through StorytellingWe want those who perceive police officers as a threat to experience a story created from officers who extended themselves to the formerly incarcerated population by sharing their personal narratives.
Redefine Spaces
First, our goal is to bring hope to the community by transforming the meaning of spaces. The final performances will take place at sites known for community degradation and the stories of the participants will transform them to sites of hope.
A New Audience
Our second goal is to bring the theater to the community. Theaters are beautiful spaces yet the people who need to hear a story of police officers and formerly incarcerated men coming together do not regularly attend their local theater.
Positive Media Images
We hear many stories of black men and women being killed by police officers. Theater for Humanity aims to create new narratives that humanize police officers and formerly incarcerated persons.
Participants Lead Change
Theater for Humanity participants are seen in a new light as they are recognized as the leaders of a new kind of community.