Faculty Mentor/s:
Bill Whitney, Creative Inquiry
Students on the team:
Amadea Lehoczky Escobar ‘25
Amber Brose ‘24
Nessia Crispe ‘24
Shley Nathan ‘26
Xindi Zhang ‘24
Project Description:
The issue of mass incarceration is one that touches lives locally, regionally, and globally. The Beyond Bars project aims to examine all of the individual and community-wide consequences that stem from mass incarceration, focused on consequences here in the Lehigh Valley, and use innovative forms of theatre and storytelling to educate, inspire, and move citizens to action on behalf of the cause of prison abolition. In its first three years, student teams wrote and performed live and virtual pieces of theatre based on stories and interviews conducted in the Northampton County Prison system and around the Lehigh Valley. Currently, Beyond Bars is focused on the school-to-prison pipeline, and developing a set of innovative storytelling workshops that will be implemented with schools, youth programs, and community organizations to give youth the ability to process and articulate their experiences. We are looking for students with strong interests in theatre, social change, policy reform, and the social-justice applications of art and culture to create real, positive, sustainable, change for individuals and communities affected by the problem of the school-to-prison pipeline and the U.S. prison/judicial system.
Month/Year Project Began: May 2018