Bringing Theater to Prisons (A Thing Movies Are Made Of)

A dependable haven for artists in isolation, Theater Resources Unlimited (TRU) is now in its fourth year of non-stop weekly Community Gatherings this Friday, having offered to date over 200 conversations and unlimited camaraderie since April 17, 2020. TRU hosts their Community Gatherings every Friday at 5pm ET via Zoom, to explore the creation of art and theater in the time of COVID-19, and to ensure that these crucial conversations continue going forward as theater reopens.

3/29 - Bringing Theater to Prisons (A Thing Movies Are Made Of). In the room: Brent Buell, producer (the hip-hop musical Freedom), director (unFramed, produced by TRU's Jane Dubin), From Sing Sing to Broadway at Playwright's Horizons), playwright (The Gate, The Gem Exchange), novelist (Rapturous), actor, activist, and a graduate of TRU's producer program. For ten years, Buell volunteered with the non-profit organization Rehabilitation Through the Arts, directing theater in New York’s maximum-security prisons. There his productions of plays, ranging from John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men to three original works by prisoners, earned praise from critics, including from The New York Times. His original comedy Breakin’’ the Mummy’s Code premiered at Sing Sing and was the subject of a feature article in Esquire. But the current big news is that he recently completed work on a movie about events that took place while he was teaching theater inside prison, and the result is the new film Sing Sing, directed by Greg Kwedar and starring Oscar nominees Colman Domingo and Paul Raci. What inspired Brent to bring theater to prisons in the first place? What are the rewards? And are there dangers as well? How did the idea of making a movie about it come to be? What were the challenges of accurately telling this story? And what was the learning curve like moving from live performance to film? Click here to register and receive the Zoom link.

Check back at TRU’s web page for future 2024 gatherings: truonline.org/tru-community-gathering. To receive the Zoom invitation for weekly meetings, email TRUnltd@aol.com with “Zoom Me” in the subject header. These gatherings are free for TRU members, non-members are asked to make an optional tax-deductible donation, or consider joining TRU at truonline.org/membership to support the organization during these challenging times.

Videos of past Community Gatherings may be viewed on TRU’s YouTube channel atyoutube.com/channel/UC43rsChi4fA23dNLeloaF_A/. And a new podcast series, TRU Talks About Theater featuring 2023 Community Gathering conversations is now available wherever you get your podcasts; or tune in at ElectraCast: https://electracast.com/?s=Theater+Resources

Theater Resources Unlimited (TRU) is the leading network for developing theater professionals, a thirty year old 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization created to help producers produce, emerging theater companies to emerge healthily and all theater professionals to understand and navigate the business of the arts. Membership includes self-producing artists as well as career producers and theater companies.

TRU publishes an email community newsletter of services, opportunities and productions; presents weekly Community Gatherings; offers a Producer Development & Mentorship Program taught by prominent producers and general managers in New York theater, and also presents Producer Boot Camp workshops to help aspirants develop business skills. TRU serves writers through the TRU Voices Play Reading Series, TRUSpeak: Hear Our Voices evening of short plays, Writer-Producer Speed Date, a Practical Playwriting Workshop, How to Write a Musical That Works and a Director-Writer Communications Lab.

Programs of Theater Resources Unlimited are supported in part by the Montage Foundation, The Storyline Project and the Leibowitz Greenway Foundation; and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

For more information about TRU membership and programs, visit http://www.truonline.org.

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