The paper presents the Asseblywomen Project, conducted by Papalangki Theatre Company during 2020-2021 at the Women's Prison in Eleonas (Greece). Using as rehearsal material the comedy play "The Assemblywomen" by Aristophanes, the project aimed to encourage the participation of ex-drug addicted inmate women at the rehabilitation process,…

I began my life as a prison theatre artist 25 years ago. Over the years, through first-hand experience with prisoners, their families, and others, I came to understand some of the more oppressive elements of the state prison system, and the relation of that system to the larger prison-industrial complex. This essay is a reflection on the key…

Threatened with ever-increasing levels of surveillance and confinement, this special issue attempts to extend the discussion of "Prison Theatre" to consider 'carcerality' as a pervasive neoliberal strategy. The issue aims to steer the discussion away from considerations of utility and the aesthetics of redemption, towards understandings…

This article investigates the impact of arts-based therapies on incarcerated individuals within the Presidency Correctional Home in Kolkata with specific reference to Alokananda Roy's project 'Culture Therapy'. This programme for the rehabilitation of incarcerated individuals through the arts is arguably the first of its kind in the Indian…

The Phoenix Players Theatre Group (PPTG) was founded in 2009 by incarcerated men at the Auburn Correctional Facility in Upstate New York. This article explores PPTG's work using Nicholas Mirzoeff's (2011) theory of the 'right to look' in order to understand how prison theatre functions within and against the visual regime of carcerality. This…

This study draws on the experiences of eleven individuals working for six organisations in Northern California to identify ways White supremacist ideals operate in performance-related programmes in correctional facilities. The inquiry examines the experience of teaching artist/facilitators (TAFs) of colour; White TAF's (in)ability to reflect on…

This article presents two key findings from a case study on the impact of a theatre laboratory programme implemented at 'C. Beccaria' youth detention centre in Milan. First, the opening of a permanent theatre inside the prison, with the involvement of the broader community, has helped fulfil detained minors' rights to culture and rehabilitation,…

This paper reflects on The Maroon Project, a series of poetry and performance workshops at the Iziko Slave Lodge Museum with a group of previously-incarcerated 'Coloured' men. The project facilitated a process of Spillerian interior intersubjectivity toward a self-authorship that could 'speak flesh' by placing the carceral system under scrutiny…

Shakespeare's elite cultural status bolsters the sense of achievement and empowerment experienced by participants in prison performance programmes; and yet, such engagements paradoxically risk further marginalising participants by reinforcing a colonial mentality in which Shakespeare represents an offering from a morally superior white culture.…

"Nga Patu Korero: Walls That Talk" (2019) is a documentary theatre production staged by incarcerated men at Unit 8 Te Piriti at Auckland Prison in Aotearoa New Zealand. The performance was built around Te Whare Tapa Wha (The House of Four Sides) -- a model of Maori health that participants engaged with as part of their therapy for being…

In this article I reflect on my experiences as a previously incarcerated individual being involved in theatre performance for the first time. I reflect on how my involvement in arts and education programmes in prison made me aware of the larger structures of Whiteness that were embedded in the educational and arts contexts that I found myself in…

This paper explores the reformulation of the English curriculum for prison education across England and Wales in the second decade of the twenty-first century. As a PhD researcher and Functional English teacher examining the use of drama and creative education in a prison at the time, a prohibition on the use of fictional reading and writing…

This paper compares how urban-themed black British playwriting can be understood within mainstream and applied theatre contexts. The paper first examines the focus of the mainstream theatre's education packs for productions of Kwame Kwei-Armah's "Elmina's Kitchen" and Roy Williams's "Fallout" before exploring how black men's…

Incarcerated women at Westville Female Correctional Centre in Durban, South Africa have been using popular participatory theatre (PPT) to create a space to generate debate about aspects of prison life for over 10 years. This article explores how these women engaged the issue of lesbianism in the Correctional Centre and how the process and form was…

The use of sexual violence as a means of power and control within the South African prison system has been well documented. Sexual violence is intimately linked to the gendering of roles, such that rape and coercive sex is used as a brutal means of imposing a feminised identity; a violent enactment of who penetrates and who gets penetrated. Within…