About Bar None

Bar None Theater Project is committed to a dialogue-based creative process that promotes community, social justice, and imagination. Julia and Max are facilitators who lead theater workshops in and around the criminal justice system as part of a larger movement to confront mass incarceration and support community and individual agency.

In this upcoming Bar None Theater Project intensive, women at the York Correctional Institution, in Niantic, CT, will build on a previous theater residency (January 2011) that explored storytelling conventions and theatrical forms. The group of sixteen women experimented with ways to imagine their lives and communities theatrically, to express their identities as more than an inmate or a number. At the culmination of the January workshop, the women in the group wanted to share these stories beyond our classroom and create a piece of theater together to perform for the larger community of the prison.

So in our upcoming workshop, the group will develop an original piece of theater based on a theme that interests them, and perform it at the facility for other women at the prison and guests from the outside community. The devising method we use is unique in that the play is entirely the participants creation, developed through a process of reflection and action that encourages critical thinking and engagement with the world.

Why Support This Project

Since the mid-1990's, funding for arts and education in prisons across the country has been cut dramatically. Nationally, the number of women in prison continues to soar, and media rhetoric and national narratives about crime and safety perpetuate harsh sentencing laws. In the face of this, the women of Bar None choose to reject the inhuman picture painted of them and to push the boundaries of their experience. In our previous residency, one participant said, "I enjoyed the question: what I want the world to know and what I want to change in the world. [It] really hit home. This type of question really helped me analyze where I stand in life and what I want out of it."

Art is a vital tool we have to communicate with each other about who we are and what we want the world to look like. We all deserve to tell our stories and, in turn, have the responsibility to listen to others. Please help Bar None continue to create original theater at York.

How You Can Help

We are trying to keep our costs as low as possible. Your support will help to cover:

• Transportation from New York to Connecticut
• Materials and props for the workshop
• Artist fees
  

There are other ways you can help:

• Post the link to this campaign page on your facebook, twitter, blog, or website. Help us increase visibility! Share with others who may be interested.

• Talk with your friends and family about the prison system - Who is in prison in our country? Why? How is your community affected by incarceration? What role does theater have in the prison system?

Any contribution will go a long way toward helping us hold this workshop. Thank you and check back with us for updates!