Description
Book SynopsisBased on more than a decade of practice, Playing for Time Theatre Company presents the reader with a rich and invaluable resource for using theatre in criminal justice contexts, exploring ideas of identity, community, social justice and the power of the arts. The book analyses and reflects upon the company's evolution and unique model of practice, with university students and prisoners working side-by-side, led by industry professionals. The work draws on diverse methodologies and approaches, with chapters written from multiple perspectives, including a forensic psychologist, director, playwright, historian, student and ex-prisoners. Crucially, the voices and reflections of participating prisoners are central to the book. Providing unprecedented access to a significant body of prison theatre, Playing for Time Theatre Company presents both an overview and analysis of an extensive body of work, as well as offering perspectives on the efficacy of arts practice in the UK criminal justice system from 2000 onwards.
Trade Review'Playing for Time is an insightful book sharing the more unusual aspects of drama work in prisons and the vital role it plays in the reduction of reoffending in the lives of those who face the challenging demands of imprisonment – and release.'
-- Amanda Kipling, Drama Magazine, Summer 2019
Table of ContentsAcknowledgements
Preface
Selina Busby
Introduction
Annie McKean with Kate Massey-Chase
Chapter 1: Transformation and Challenge in Insecure Worlds: The Arts in Secure Institutions
Annie McKean
Chapter 2: Playing for Time Theatre Company: A Model of Practice
Annie McKean
Chapter 3: Playing for Time in ‘The Dolls’ House’: Issues of Community and Collaboration in the Devising of Theatre in a Women’s Prison
Annie McKean
Chapter 4: The Carlisle Memorial Refuge, Winchester 1868–81: ‘That Most Difficult of All Social Questions’ – A Nineteenth-Century Approach to the Rehabilitation of Women Prisoners
Pat Thompson
Chapter 5: Stage Fright: What’s so Scary about Dressing Up?
Brian Woolland
Chapter 6: Telling the Self or Performing Another: The Exploration of Identity through Storytelling, Role and Analogy in West Hill, HMP Winchester
Kate Massey-Chase
Chapter 7: Lessons from the Prison: The Space between Two Worlds
Annie McKean
Chapter 8: Our Country’s Good by Timberlake Wertenbaker: Creating Liberatory Spaces? Reflections on Process and Performance
Marianne Sharp
Chapter 9: The Drama of Change: A Comparative Study of University Students’ and Prisoners’ Dispositional Empathy, Need for Closure and Future Possible Selves
Ann Henry
Chapter 10: Exit Stage Left: Conversation, Creative Writing and Coping with Loss: An Introduction to Scott’s Diary
Kass Boucher
Chapter 11: From the Fishbowl to the Sea: A Nine-Week Journey
Scott
Chapter 12: Over the Wall Theatre Company
Fiona Mackie
Postscript
Notes on Contributors
Index
