ALUMNI
THEATRE COMPANY
PPA’s first adult actors returned to St. Louis in 2005; PPA immediately established an Alumni Theatre Company to offer a constructive outlet for their energies and offer connections to organizations that provide re-entry services.
PPA’s Alumni Theatre Company, one of the only prison alumni theatre companies in the United States, is currently made up of former inmates now living in the St. Louis area who worked with PPA while incarcerated. This program provides kinship, stability and a creative outlet as members re-establish themselves in the community.
The company is thriving, past performance partnerships include the Greater St. Louis Humanities Festival, St. Louis Shakespeare Festival’s Green Show and Shake38, Grand Center Theatre Crawl, St. Louis Rotary Club, Washington University’s Medical Orientation Week, and many collaborations through the St. Louis Public Library.
The group meets on a regular basis, to develop new material, focus on skill development, and become a source of support to returning citizens. This investment of time and energy in constructive work adds a regular artistic experience to the ongoing rehabilitative investment made by returning citizens and continues the artistic skill-building begun by PPA during incarceration. An important facet of the Alumni Theatre Company experience is frequent collaboration with guest artists, who instruct company members on various aspects of theatre practice, such as playwriting, voice & diction, movement, and design/stagecraft. With this growing and consistent rehearsal and performance schedule, the Alumni Theatre Company is becoming a distinctive community outreach effort for PPA.
We encourage any community organization, church, synagogue, special event or corporate institution to consider booking the Alumni Theatre Company for a program. PPA’s Alumni Theatre Company can offer an entertaining and meaningful performance and/or talkback for any occasion from a corporate luncheon, church service, or community event. Performances and talkbacks range in duration from 30 minutes, 45 minutes or 1 hour.
CURRENT PROGRAMS AVAILABLE
Midsummer Madness
This Shakespeare romp offers the antics of the clowns from the Bard's A Midsummer Night’s Dream, in their hilarious version of the play within the play Pyramus and Thisbe. Shakespeare's affectionate homage to actors and playmaking goes into imaginative overdrive to the delight of all.
The Beginning For Myself
Written by the members of the Alumni Theatre Company, this stirring theatrical collage of scenes, poetry, and monologues articulate life outside of prison. It assures the audience that returning citizens, like them, are all part of the same struggling human race, and each of us in our lifetimes, faces many new beginnings.
Going Home
Written by dozens of incarcerated artists, this funny, touching, and enlightening show dramatizes and satirizes the complex and challenging road to re-entering society after prison. Full of truth and hope, it helps us all to understand the challenges of “going home.”
Contact Rachel Tibbetts at rachel@prisonartsstl.org for more information and to schedule a performance
by the Alumni Theatre Company.
