I Think of You: Illuminating Mass Incarceration from the Inside Out
August 25-27, 2023
Ellyn Bye Studio
Portland Center Stage
128 NW 11th Ave
Portland, OR
Join us for a weekend of performance, workshops and dialogue centered on the impacts of mass incarceration on our community. Drawing on work from Lewis & Clark’s Inside/Out Program, the weekend will feature a devised theatre piece, a devising workshop focused on envisioning a future without prisons and a sample Inside/Out class in addition to panels and talk-backs. All events are FREE and open to the public.
More Info
I Think of You
created in collaboration with Inside/Out Students in HIST 238/338: Crime and Punishment in the United States
Directed by Rebecca Lingafelter
Dramaturgy by Sterling Cunio
Lead Artist and Scholar Reiko Hillyer
Performed by Roo Welsh, Gerrin Mitchell, Connor Pascale, Isabel McTighe, Evelyn Wohlbier, Negasi Brown
Designed by Jenny Ampersand, Miranda Hardy and Mark Valadez
This performance piece is a project of Spring 2023’s Inside-Out Prison Exchange class, a course on the history of crime and punishment in the United States that integrates incarcerated students with Lewis & Clark undergraduates. Thanks to a Creative Heights grant from the Oregon Community Foundation, Rebecca Lingafelter of the Theater Department and Sterling Cunio of Willamette University’s Transformative Justice Initiative were able to join Reiko Hillyer of the History Department in leading the creation of this piece as our final effort to engage with the course material and sharing this work with a larger auidence. It is derived from the students’ own writing, woven with voices from the past, to communicate a brief history of mass incarceration, its impact on our neighbors, and our experience of sharing and learning together.
Imagining a World Without Prisons: A Devising Workshop
Led by Bobby Bermea
This workshop will employ theatre, improvisation, writing and conversation to open up the possibilities of imagining a world without prisons. The workshop is suitable for anyone interested in exploring these themes, and you do not need to have any prior performance experience to join. We hope that you will have seen the production, but it is not required for the workshop.
Bobby Bermea is the co-artistic director of The Beirut Wedding World Theatre Project, a member of Sojourn Theatre, and a long-standing member of Actors Equity Association. Bermea is a writer, director and award-winning actor and has appeared in theatres literally from New York, NY to Honolulu, HI. As a director, Bermea has recently helmed productions of My Soul Grown Deep and The Green Book with BaseRoots Theatre, Hollow Roots with BoomArts, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and The Sexual Neuroses of Our Parents with Theatre Vertigo, Wait Until Dark at Northwest Classical Theatre, Fires in the Mirror and Blue Door at Profile Theatre and he co-directed Top Dog/Underdog at Street Scenes. Bermea has also done extensive work with youth and especially underserved populations, having worked through the Actors-to-Go at Artists Repertory Theatre, Higher Stages with Tears of Joy, the Haven Project, Playwrite, Inc., Young Audiences, Portland Youth Builders, the Cordero House.
Inside/Out Prison Exchange Workshop
Led by Professor Reiko Hillyer
This workshop will introduce participants to the Inside/Out class model. The workshop will include 15 formerly incarcerated participants and 15 other participants and will engage students in exercises and themes from Professor Hillyer’s Inside/Out Class.