The Proscenium Cage: Critical Case Studies in U.S. Prison Theatr ...

Supplementing these interviews are testimonials quoted in newspaper articles and reviews, as well as descriptions of the shows, rehearsals, and workshops cataloged in various journalistic publications. I have also based my conclusions on videotapes of Prison Performing Arts’ Hamlet Project, as well as tape recorded rehearsal sessions and interviews conducted by Jack Hitt for the National Public Radio program American Life. I also attended performances of the Oedipus Project, including the postperformance “talkback” afterwards. A questionnaire was also circulated among the PPA participants at the Missouri Eastern Correctional Center. A collection of videotapes cataloging workshop sessions and personal interviews with the participants and personnel of Theatre for the Forgotten is housed in the Special Collections archives of the Lloyd Sealy Library at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York, and these greatly informed this study.

The interview process involved a combination of asking specific, pointed questions about the program and open-ended discussion wherein the interview subjects were asked to talk about the work in their own words and what significance it had for them. I relied as much as possible on this latter sort of inquiry, asking follow-up questions only to clarify the subject’s responses. In this way, I sought to amass as much honest information as could be gathered without guiding the respondents’ answers in any direction, in order to have as much empirical evidence as possible from which to draw conclusions.

Interview opportunities with the theatre professionals obviously proved abundant, and I contacted all the professionals several times for several discussions and follow-up inquests. The initial interview typically lasted two or three hours, and each follow-up interview would last anywhere between ten minutes and a half an hour, depending on the subject’s availability and how much he had to say. Consequently, there is a plethora of evidence available from these individuals.

Interviews with the participating inmates, however, are regrettably scant. Many of the program participants with the two defunct companies were unable to be located, and the few whom I was able to find and speak with represented the most shining examples of the company’s success stories. Interviews with the PPA participants who are still incarcerated were a bit more fruitful.