|
PHOENIX PLAYERS THEATRE GROUP
The Phoenix Players Theatre Group (PPTG) is a performance collective founded by Michael Rhynes and Clifford Williamson, incarcerated men in the Auburn Correctional Facility in central New York.
|
|
In the words of the group’s founders, “[PPTG] is a transformative theatre community,
which utilizes theatre to reconnect incarcerated people to their full humanity.” Even though the
group invites several civilian facilitators into its meetings, PPTG is run and operated by
incarcerated people. Since 2009, PPTG has held small, tight-knit workshops for two hours each
Friday evening, with the aim of creating a space where imprisoned writers and performers can
be witnessed, and where they can initiate a process of personal, cultural, and socio-political
transformation.
To fulfill this mission, the members participate in a training process, craft theatre pieces,
rehearse scenes and monologues, discuss current events, and share personal stories.
Ultimately, the group devises a 90-minute performance, mostly composed of solo pieces
sutured together into a kind of theatrical collage, to be presented every 18 months to two years
before an invited public audience.
One of the group’s key concepts, transformation, works in two directions: It originates within
the participants to repair and restore the aspects of their humanity fractured in incarceration,
and at the same time it works from without, helping to alter public perception of the people
reductively marked “criminal.”
The name of PPTG’s 2018 production, “The Strength of Our Convictions: the Auburn
Redemption,” echoes PPTG’s declaration of action, written in 2009 by founding member
Michael Rhynes: “it is our burden and duty to prove ourselves worthy of forgiveness and trust
from those we have offended. Like the mythological ‘Phoenix,’ we [each] want to rise from the
ashes of an unproductive and shameful past to live in the present as a redeemed person.”
*Parts of this biography haves appeared in previous articles co-authored by Bruce Levitt.
Nick Fesette and published in the journals Rejoinder, from Rutgers University, and The Theatre
Times. An excerpt also appeared in an article in The Cornell Chronical authored by Linda Glaser.
PPTG is a part of the Arts, Justice, and Safety Coalition, a group of arts organizations and programs focused on racial justice, restorative justice, transformative justice, and Criminal Justice Reform.
Website | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
which utilizes theatre to reconnect incarcerated people to their full humanity.” Even though the
group invites several civilian facilitators into its meetings, PPTG is run and operated by
incarcerated people. Since 2009, PPTG has held small, tight-knit workshops for two hours each
Friday evening, with the aim of creating a space where imprisoned writers and performers can
be witnessed, and where they can initiate a process of personal, cultural, and socio-political
transformation.
To fulfill this mission, the members participate in a training process, craft theatre pieces,
rehearse scenes and monologues, discuss current events, and share personal stories.
Ultimately, the group devises a 90-minute performance, mostly composed of solo pieces
sutured together into a kind of theatrical collage, to be presented every 18 months to two years
before an invited public audience.
One of the group’s key concepts, transformation, works in two directions: It originates within
the participants to repair and restore the aspects of their humanity fractured in incarceration,
and at the same time it works from without, helping to alter public perception of the people
reductively marked “criminal.”
The name of PPTG’s 2018 production, “The Strength of Our Convictions: the Auburn
Redemption,” echoes PPTG’s declaration of action, written in 2009 by founding member
Michael Rhynes: “it is our burden and duty to prove ourselves worthy of forgiveness and trust
from those we have offended. Like the mythological ‘Phoenix,’ we [each] want to rise from the
ashes of an unproductive and shameful past to live in the present as a redeemed person.”
*Parts of this biography haves appeared in previous articles co-authored by Bruce Levitt.
Nick Fesette and published in the journals Rejoinder, from Rutgers University, and The Theatre
Times. An excerpt also appeared in an article in The Cornell Chronical authored by Linda Glaser.
PPTG is a part of the Arts, Justice, and Safety Coalition, a group of arts organizations and programs focused on racial justice, restorative justice, transformative justice, and Criminal Justice Reform.
Website | Twitter | Instagram | Facebook
