With support from the California Arts Council, TheatreWorkers Project (TWP) will continue to provide Theatre Inside, a rehabilitative, literacy-building arts program, for residents of California State Prison, Los Angeles County (LAC). Theatre Inside will enable participants to explore and reframe their narratives, culminating in a theatre piece written and performed by the participants, presented to audiences of their peers, families, and the public.In accordance with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), TWP’s program will support the goal of facilitating “the successful reintegration of individuals …back to their communities equipped with the tools to be drug-free, healthy, and employable members of society.”
Using theatre to illuminate social and political issues has been our goal since 1983 when founder Susan Franklin Tanner was awarded a CAC Artist in Communities grant to create theatre with unemployed steelworkers in southeast LA. With that grant, Tanner founded TheatreWokers Project (TWP) and pioneered a form of documentary theatre where the participants, supported by professional artists, provided the content and became the storyteller/actors. TWP went on the create theatre projects with and/or about shipbuilders, meat packers, longshoremen, critical nurses and Latinx immigrant workers. Over time, our focus expanded to include collaborating with community-based re-entry programs serving the formerly incarcerated and prison programs serving incarcerated youth and adults, workshops for community and university medical centers, and providing classical and contemporary theatre experiences for youth through ongoing school residencies and performances. COVID-related restrictions have prompted us to embrace and incorporate filmed performance collages, virtual program delivery and correspondence courses as centerpieces of our programming.

