PROGRAMMING

Audience: Both currently and formerly incarcerated participants
Our unique theatre curriculum that we do with people impacted by incarceration in the greater Washington, DC community. We work with groups – both currently and formerly incarcerated – to share their stories, explore related social justice issues, and generate solutions. The people we work with make the decisions about what issues are tackled, and create and perform their own original scripts—building life skills and returning a sense of autonomy in a system that is designed to restrict an individual’s power.

Audience: Formerly incarcerated participants, called Community Advocates (CAs); Community members
Individuals who are formerly incarcerated, called Community Advocates, perform a staged reading of work created by individuals who are currently incarcerated out in the community in order to help amplify their voices and shift the narrative. CAs are paid $20 per hour for rehearsals and $50 per hour for performances. A diverse audience is invited to attend performances to learn from people with lived experience, participate in collective problem solving, and actively reimagine systems and social norms.

Audience: CAs + Community stakeholders
An ongoing Legislative Theatre series, in partnership with DC Justice Lab, where we host interactive community conversations focused on specific criminal justice issues and use Theatre of the Oppressed techniques and performance to spread awareness in the community, center the lived-experience of systems-impacted individuals, and offer an accessible entry point for community members to brainstorm and propose creative solutions to systemic issues alongside policy experts. By being in dialogue with various community stakeholders, people directly impacted by incarceration are able to advocate for tangible changes to policies and social norms, and ATVU is able to organize a coalition of advocates invested in change.

Audience: CAs + Theatre artists
The professional production arm of our work that uses TO techniques, interviews with people impacted by incarceration, programming scripts, and devising techniques to develop new work with traditional theatre artists. These plays show the larger context of incarceration and how it can have a ripple effect beyond the prison walls. This programming offers an artistic exchange between traditional theatre artists and people impacted by incarceration, invites a broader audience to hear these stories, shifts how theatre is created, and expands whose stories are represented onstage.
To learn more, visit our Ally Theatre Company website!