Thursday, November 3, 2011

The Uses of Joy: Conspire Theatre, by Katherine Catmull, Austin Chronicle


Found in this week's edition of

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Michelle Dahlenberg, Kat Craft Conspire Theatre (photo: Jana Birchum via Austin Chronicle)

The Uses of Joy


When Conspire Theatre helps incarcerated women, it's all in the game

by Katherine Catmull

"In a very serious world, we must not forget the importance of play." – Conspire Theatre's mission statement


I used to work in an office with a rule about when we could take lunch, which was a constant source of annoyance to me. What if I get busy and don't notice the time till 2 p.m.? Get your laws off my ham sandwich, oppressor!

I would not do so well in prison. In the women's minimum security unit of the Travis County Correctional Complex in Del Valle, razor wire loops-the-loop along chain-link fences, keeping you in, keeping everything you love out. When prisoners walk between buildings, they must keep their hands behind their backs and stay just outside of one of the long red stripes painted on the sidewalk. And of course, that's the least of the structures and strictures of life for incarcerated women.

That's what makes what Conspire Theatre brings to the prison so odd.

It looks like a classroom, any classroom: cinder block walls, fluorescent lights, a whiteboard. (As we suspected in junior high: Classrooms and prisons have a lot in common.) Ten women enter, some in their 30s or 40s, most younger, all wearing prison uniforms of wide gray and khaki stripes. Prisoners still wear stripes – who knew.


Read full text by Katherine Catmull at the Austin Chronicle . . .


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