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Hopefully, this book will start a new trend, one that is a testament to the proud work of practitioners, the prisoners who have become better people, the pioneers who ran the programs, the prison administrators who risked supporting them and the select group of compassionate scholars who found in the aesthetic process something worthy of replicating.
On a basic level, this book documents three programs: Theatre for the Forgotten (TFTF), Cell Block Theatre (CBT) and Prison Performing Arts (PPA), describing their history and political landscape, mission, rehearsal process, plays performed, benefits to the prisoners and response of the administration. Although the sample is limited to three programs, the scope is broad since the programs cover contemporary and classical approaches to theatre as well as Forum Theatre and Theatre of the Oppressed, leaving the readers with no shortage of riches on insights about the challenges and benefits and appropriateness of all the forms. On a more scholarly note, by citing relevant research in penology and performance theory, using countless examples from all three programs, Tocci de-constructs how the mechanism of theatre in prison counteracts the effects of prisonization.
Tocci is careful to avoid pronouncements about the efficacy of these programs, with the exception of statistical support on infraction rates, however, the evidence piles up that theatre behind bars is an effective antidote to the rituals of prisonization. And although theatre is not yet a proven deterrent to recidivism, it certainly appears to make prisoners better citizens while they are behind bars.
You will find this book a thoughtful treatise on educational theatre, acting in particular. If an actor can control comportment, (as in shaping a role for a character that is dissimilar,) then that actor sees herself as capable of change. If capable of change, then, capable of changing the response of others. This is extremely empowering to participants of theatre-behind-bars who consider the locus of control to lie beyond their grasp.