Removing the Bars for Collaborative Shakespeare

Abstract

The United States is home to the largest prison population in the world. The incarcerated too often are viewed as appropriately warehoused as they pay their debt to society. Enlightened prison wardens and artist educators know the value of using prison time to rehabilitate through education, and Shakespeare theatre programs demonstrate success at reducing recidivism rates and returning citizens to more productive lives. Introducing college students to these programs transforms the students’ learning experience. The layers of collaboration—between text and performer, between performance and audience (inmates), between inmates and students, and between students and theatre—continue to evolve. This essay explores the ways in which Shakespeare unshackled by expectation—of who can appreciate the work, how it can be performed, and how the privileged and the disenfranchised can be joined by Shakespeare—produces greater insights into the plays and the human. Using voices and experiences of both inmates and students, this essay explores this unorthodox way of understanding collaboration, the ways in which an alternate performance text comes to the stage, and provides insight into how and why this approach to Shakespeare transforms a prison population and those engaged in these productions.