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Angelica Richie is an actress, singer and dancer, but the role we really dig into in this conversation is her work as a teaching artist with the non-profit Shining Light.
Shining Light has been working with correctional facilities for over 20 years, creating opportunities for artistic expression in prisons across the US and giving incarcerated men and women new ways to find their voices and have them heard.
Angelica and her colleagues usually do in person workshops with inmates, helping them create presentations that they then showcase to peers in their facility. The COVID 19 pandemic forced prisons to limit access to visitors and the regular workshops had to be cancelled, but Shining Light devised a way to continue to serve their artists and alumni on the inside and create a piece that they are able to share with the public for the first time. Creations of a Caged Bird is the hour long presentation featuring work written and devised by inmates that has been performed and produced by artists like Angelica. It’s available on youtube and I’ve shared the link in the show notes. Creations of a Caged Bird is powerful and very moving and I wanted to learn more about it.
Links and show notes from this episode:
Creations of a Caged Bird
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SHOW TRANSCRIPT:
Matthew Carey
Hi, Angelica. and Welcome to Studio Time.
Angelica Richie
Oh, thank you so much for having me on.
Matthew Carey
It's my pleasure. We're here because you've been working on a project called Creations of a Caged Bird with Shining Light. It's an incredible project. Can you tell me who Shining Light is and how you got involved with them?
Angelica Richie
Sure. Shining Light is an arts nonprofit that does performances and arts programming in prisons and jails. Typically our work is in person, we're going into facilities, mostly with a two week impact workshop, which is extremely time intensive. It's over 70 hours of work with incarcerated men and women, and we're putting on an hour long program that will be performed for an audience of their peers. That's made up of teams of spoken word, dance, theatre and voice. Some components are self written by the unique participants on that project, and typically, around a third of the facility will see the show. So that's maybe six or seven hundred of their fellow inmates, in addition to Administration and Social Workers who will come see the show.
So that's our normal thing that happens five or six times a year at prisons and jails throughout Pennsylvania, New York, South Carolina, and Ohio. We also have a three day intensive that is a bit of an abridged experience of that, but still working together - long days - working on a smaller volume of pieces. So if normally a theater team in two weeks will build out a 15 minute one act that self-written, for the intensive we do a monologue cycle for 10 participants.
That's what we would like to do normally, and COVID has changed so much, including the way we're able to work and engage with this population we want to serve. A lot of facilities in the US are in 23 hour a day lockdowns. Inmates being housed at these facilities are confined to their housing units, basically, for everything but a shower and a phone call.
It's also eliminated outside volunteers coming in, which has a huge impact. Imagine you're someone who had a program that you were completing, and that would be something you needed, to be able to go before a parole board. If you don't have access to that program, you can't successfully file for your parole. So the consequences are massive, and visits aren't happening. Programs aren't happening.
We were just asking ourselves, what can we do to engage with the alumni participants that we have who are still incarcerated? The organization being so innovative, and in the moment, which... They've been working inside prisons and jails for decades, truly, it's much before I got there... we were asking ourselves, “how can we continue to serve this group and engage them in whole person programming and creative collaboration?” And that's where the idea of this remote project came from.
Matthew Carey
Tell me how you personally found this organization.
Angelica Richie
Okay, so I work as a teaching artist with them, I've led Theatre and Dance teams at men's facilities. Though the organization works in men's and women's, I've only ever worked with men. They actually are not so convinced that I would get along well with the ladies. So I've sort of found my niche with the guys working with Theatre and Dance. And almost all teaching artists that end up with this organization come through referral, because it is a kind of unique skill set and interests to have, right? It's not the right place for everyone, which I don't think there needs to be any judgment about. If working inside a prison is not where someone's going to thrive, they should go wherever they will. I'm maybe not the best person for youth programming, and - great - because I found somewhere else I can work. So anyway, I had a close friend who had done a workshop with the organization. And I'd heard about his experience and how transformative it had been for him, how much he learned about what incarceration in the US looks like, and how really creatively inspiring this project had been. You're working with people with such diverse backgrounds and perspectives, which is not always the case in commercial musical theater which can be a little homogenous.
He had expressed how important this had been to him as a person and I thought that sounded great, very, very amazing, but hadn't envisioned myself in a role specifically with them. But they were working on Rikers Island, which is the largest New York City jail. It usually houses over 4000 inmates. It is being closed down gradually, so that number is changing all the time. But there's a workshop happening at Rikers and he was like, “You know, I think that this could be a place where you are a really good fit. I think your skills would work well here. I think you would enjoy it. So come to Rikers and see the show and you'll get a better sense of what they're doing.” So I didn’t think it could hurt to just go see a show, but of course, that means taking a train, to a bus, to a van in Queens to get out to the island - which is heavily guarded, going through the security process there and finally getting into a gym to see the show that I could not conceive of what it would be like.
Matthew Carey
That’s certainly site specific theater, isn't it?
Angelica Richie
Yes. And the incredible thing is that they set up professional equipment. I mean, the wireless mics, the lighting tresses, studio spots, soundboards. It's unbelievable to see all of this equipment that is professional commercial equipment for theater inside a jailhouse gym. It's nuts.
So I saw the show there. Something that was really important to me was the Invitational nature of the work in terms of spirituality. It is a Christian organization and I'm a person of faith myself, but I'm always very wary of things that might feel exclusionary or condemning. And that was not the heart that came through in this show, it was really an invitation to explore spirituality and what purpose looks like for an individual, no matter their circumstances.
I felt really impressed by the mission and the execution and set up some time to talk with the leaders after that. Then I was staffed on a workshop within the month, actually. I was in rural Pennsylvania a month later, at a very high security prison, and maybe was in over my head, but was fortunate to have leadership that really knew what they were doing. So that's sort of how I ended up in the loop and now I've done five different out of town events with them. I've logged almost 300 hours of teaching inside facilities, I've worked with over 150 men. And I'm just so grateful that I agreed to get out to Rikers Island - to take whatever bus and train I took to get there.
Matthew Carey
Yeah, I read on the website that I think it was 1996, the organization started and they started by taking performances to these facilities. They were taking outside people who were performing to the people inside. Then at some point, they asked, “What would it be like if we gave the people inside [the jail] the chance to tell their own stories and to perform to people within the facility?” Do you know how that sort of transformation came about?
Angelica Richie
It really was the idea of “What if it wasn't us doing all of the content decision making, right?” There's so many things that go into a show in terms of what goes up, and then who delivers the message. And I think just acknowledging that it's really powerful for people to hear from someone like them.
If you're trying to say - “there's purpose in meaning, no matter where you find yourself” - it's very different to have, you know, who was doing these performances (which was usually college students in the arts) it's very different to have that kind of an individual saying it, versus someone who is dealing with the same legal battles or prejudices, or ongoing battles with recidivism, and all the ways that we set up our probationary systems to work against someone who's trying to transition back to their community. What it's like to have that person saying, “There's meaning in your life, and for you, and because of you.” That's where change comes from with identifying those things.
They were hopeful that they could find someone who would agree to let them try doing the same kind of performance experience with incarcerated men or women. SCI Muncy, which is a women's prison in Pennsylvania, said “Okay, let's give it a try.” And it went really well. It was hugely transformational for the women who participated and for the audiences. And then they said, “Well, let's see if we can find a men's present to let us do this.” And everyone was like, “Oh, no, the guys will never go for it. You know, you're not going to get men to get up on stage and dance, especially, you know, some of the songs are ballads, like that'll never happen.” But they found a men's prison to let them try and it did work.
It just really kept proving itself that when you establish a culture that's one of support, and collaboration, and vulnerability, those things snowball. They snowball within the group we're working with, which is usually 30 or 40 people, and within the facility at large. I think the power of people telling their own stories, with courage and with vulnerability is pretty unmatchable, and Shining Light has found this way to get participants to trust that this process will work, and then the process proves itself time and time again.
Matthew Carey
Watching Creations of a Caged Bird and seeing the performances that were created in collaboration with the people Inside, reminds me that there's a community of people there that sometimes don't feel like their voice is heard, or that their voice is worthy of being heard. Certainly those of us that haven't ever been inside a correctional facility don't really have very much idea of what goes on there. For us, the people there are faceless. This starts to change that. As you're describing this idea of people performing for their peers and other people that they share this community with, it makes me wonder about how that changes their identity? Who they see themselves as, and how other people see them. I wonder whether you've seen any examples of that?
Angelica Richie
One of the simplest versions, and saddest at times is the relationship between administration and incarcerated man or woman. There's a big expectation about what “these kinds of people” are capable of doing. And it's not usually thought to be collaboration, or you know, this long term…
Look, any rehearsal process is so hard, right? When I think of tech processes I've been a part of, I'm like, “Oh, my gosh, we were not at our best.” Things were said that never meant to be said, and you sort of get to opening night and you're like, “Yes, everything is wiped clean. Forget what I was like, on the 11th hour of my 10 of 12.” So collaboration is just hard. Those moments happen in a workshop as well, where a lot of personalities are trying to make this thing happen and obstacles come up. Conventional wisdom from the administration might be that those things will not be worked through successfully, but they almost always are, because the people we're working with are as capable of collaboration and cooperation and sacrifice as anybody. Especially if they're working towards something that's a valuable goal. So the way that it can transform the way the administration sees the population that they're meant to be serving and making decisions in the best interest of, is huge. Also, you know, the way that they estimate they would be able to work with women from the outside is one way - and then the way we work together is very different than what they expect. It's full of respect, full of cooperation, full of deference, in a way that's really beautiful, and really demonstrates what it can mean to submit to one another's judgment and leadership in the right moments. I'm far more respected in these facilities than I am walking to get my groceries in New York City.
And then a powerful aspect in terms of that self perception and identity is - if I've ever just referred to the men, it's because that's the group that I work with - but these men have so much to offer, and they want to be contributing and caring for their communities and their families, and there are so many barriers to that. So to give them an opportunity to offer their maturity, their insight, and acts of service for the betterment of their community - that's something that they're craving, and they are often underestimated in their ability to do. Even saying, “Yes, I see how much you have to offer, and I'm so thankful for that, and I want to amplify that” can be a very powerful affirmation of who they already are.
We're not actually changing anybody, they're just getting an opportunity to live into the fullness of their character. That's, unfortunately, a very rare thing so often in the way that incarceration is dealt with in the US. I think that that opportunity to say, “I don't really care about your rap sheet, I'm meeting you today - and the person you are today is who I'm working with,” can be an opportunity to empower those traits that are already there and are being underutilized, which is I mean such a shame.
Our society would really benefit from the creativity, ingenuity and compassion that we currently have behind bars. We have 2.3 million people that are inaccessible to us, in the US in terms of all of those qualities. I personally don't think that we're going to do too much in the way of incredible innovation and progress without using the best we have available, which currently is often people serving, you know, into the third and fourth and fifth decades of their sentences.
Matthew Carey
It's incredible, the human capital that has been hidden away there, isn't it?
Angelica Richie
Yes, absolutely.
Matthew Carey
We haven't really described this for the people listening. Creations of a Caged Bird is a video presentation that you created with the team at Shining Light. As I understand it, and correct me as you need to, the incarcerated people on the inside created work in terms of they created the material, and then they passed it on to Shining Light, who found artists on the outside to film these things and to bring them to life so that they could be shared? Can you tell me a little bit about how the process worked?
Angelica Richie
Mm hmm. Yeah, so you're exactly right. We have had an interactive newsletter for the last few months through the shutdown, while we've been prevented from going in, that has had creative prompts. Sometimes we'll collect thoughts on a theme from them, and then the next newsletter, will have sort of a collage that's this same peer to peer relationship, and we just sort of are the hands that passes through.
In one of those exchanges, we put out a call for content to say, “If you'd like to submit a piece, we're looking for pieces of art to bring to life.” What came in was essays and monologues and short film scripts and a lot of poetry. It was immediately too much for one go, so it's been broken into two volumes. This first volume, those written materials were divided amongst a few different producers, of which I was one, who are regular teaching artists with Shining Light. Many of us were able to work on scripts that were written by people we had worked with personally. So of the four that I produced, I've worked with all four men, three quite closely. So you're making creative decisions, and you aren't just imagining what their personality and taste level is. Oftentimes, we're building off of a creative process that we've already been through and hoping to be able to find what their sensibility is more closely because of that.
Matthew Carey
So you can already ask yourself, “What would this person choose to do if they were making the decision for themselves?”
Angelica Richie
Yes. And what do they mean by this? What is the core of this message? Being able to then say, “Well, I know, now that I'm actually shooting remotely with someone, this moment isn't landing the way we want it to. But I've worked with them collaboratively, so I know how amenable they might be to changing directions, if it's what's best for the piece.”
Being able to sort of utilize that confidence - because it feels like a lot of pressure to bring someone else's vision to life - when you can't call them up and say, “Hey, what do you think about this quick decision we're going to make?” Those moments were fortunately often guided by previous experience with the authors. Some of these specific authors for this volume, we were able to do video conferences with. To ask further questions and say, “What of your script feels non negotiable? What feels flexible, given the constraints of our artists shooting remotely?” Some of them were able to provide audio so the voiceover that you see in the video is done by the author themselves and then there's a visual component done by someone else. Depending on the piece, there was a lot of back and forth to very little back and forth. Then we went out and tried to find as many creative ways to appropriately bring these things to life. That meant dancers, spoken word artists, actors and visual artists, who we felt like could connect to the heart of the piece for whatever reason - be it their lived experience, or their creative medium.
It does just feel bananas that we did this. It really is such an experimental feeling on our end, to say, “Yeah, we're gonna keep expanding the circles of who's engaging with this work and keep stretching outward until we have something that feels like it represents the original intention.” And then, as you were able to see, these pieces live in the public on the internet, which is very special. The privacy laws around video content for people who are incarcerated are pretty strict. So it's almost impossible to use someone's face or name when it comes to bringing their art to the outside. By using outside artists, we were able to avoid those compliance violations.
So these pieces now have a wide audience they can reach, but the original intention always was and still is to speak to their peers, just like a workshop would normally be. Most prisons have an inmate TV channel, which sounds strange, but it's like PBS for the facility - programming that's developed by people who are housed at the facility will be aired. So these DVDs are now going back into the facilities where we have partners who are writing them. They will now be seen by tens of thousands of incarcerated men and women at those facilities and then also in the New York City DOC as well with some contacts there.
The primary goal was always to encourage the population of the peers of the authors and the DVD is going in and will be screened. So that the authors can see their work brought to life. And the people that they're with can be encouraged by their specific messages as well.
Matthew Carey
The messages are so powerful. There was a piece called ‘Keep Ourselves Balanced,’ that was written by an artist called Hector. It was almost like a manifesto, the things that he'd learned that he wanted to share. One of the things that stuck with me is this saying, “cultivate friendships with people who have good values, people you can learn from, and people who would be a good role model for you.” It feels to me like this is a message that perhaps Hector wants to share with a version of himself, wants to share with the people around him. And maybe there are people in his community outside the facility that he wants to spread this message to as well,
Angelica Richie
Matthew, I don't know that this made it into the DVD. So you are just an intuitive genius on this, but he specifically wrote that letter for his daughters. So it's very much for someone on the outside and very much - right - people who have himself within them. What stronger, compelling audience is there than your own children? That's so special that you could hear that because his primary audience with that letter was his daughters, who are in this like tween category and addicted to technology and making all of these formative decisions?
Matthew Carey
That is interesting. Yeah, it's fascinating. One of the things that you mentioned was the word trust. When I think about artists collaborating, there is certainly a need to develop trust between us as we're working. And I'm just speaking from my very basic, naive knowledge, but I feel like in a community inside a correctional facility, trust isn't something that's always easy to come by and easily given. And so I wonder how you go about developing trust in a situation like that?
Angelica Richie
Yeah, in my very first workshop, one of the first things that our Executive Director said to me and the other artists who were brand new, and hadn't done a workshop before, was, “No matter what, you have to be yourself. If something comes up, and you don't know how to respond, or you're not sure what the right way to handle it is, or someone's sharing their story, and it feels sad and difficult to process, and you don't really know what to say, you just need to know that you only have to be yourself. Don't try to be perfect. Don't try to be calculated.” He said, “These guys have the best bullshit meters in the business. It's how they survived on the streets. And it's how they survive on the inside.” Because you're right, prison environments are dangerous a lot of times. And he was like, “If you are not being authentic, it will read a mile away, and it will erode your trust.”
The baseline being, mostly just to show up and be yourself. That means different things for different people. I tend to be kind of transparent, sometimes a little blunt and a little sarcastic. I like to think that I can navigate sensitive moments with compassion and with grace, but my personality is not really ‘wilting flower’. We do have female artists who are just sunshine and exude that radiant charm. I'm very envious of them, but it's not really me. And that's fine. Actually, both styles work for each of us, we just have to be ourselves.
I think that's the first thing and then I have had experiences where it feels like the same way maybe a high schooler is testing their teacher’s limits. They're pushing back to see how committed you are to being here. If this is a little difficult, will you come back tomorrow? Will you come back after the break? And will you still remain committed to this process? Those moments can be challenging, but you just know that the payoff is this relational trust if you weather those storms together, because life keeps happening.
I think that's something I didn't understand as someone who, like you said, hasn't had much personal interaction with the criminal justice system. Life keeps happening. Anyone who's incarcerated, they have families and friends on the outside and life keeps happening. Those things come in stride and you can't stop them. You can't avoid them. So just accepting that the challenges that anyone is going to face day to day are going to keep happening to people who are incarcerated but with less opportunity to engage with, and deal with those things. Just trying to even for two weeks at a time, be present in the moment and weather those storms as they come up and remain committed to treating each other with dignity and with care and with appreciation. But also, I mean it is like a miracle, right? It's a miracle that I show up. And I'm like, “Hello, I'm just some white lady who went to theater school and I hope you'd like to write a play with me.” And they're like, “Alright, let's, let's see how this goes.” It's kind of crazy that I'm accepted at all, as an outsider, and just trying to do my best sort of steer the ship through the creative process. But amazingly, it comes. The trust does come.
Matthew Carey
I would imagine that showing up like you and your team does in these correctional facilities, you bring fresh faces with you, and you're meeting these people, afresh. They're in a system where, perhaps they've been for a while, and everybody just knows them one way. By the virtue of how they're there, and where they are, that perhaps the administration sees them in one particular way. You come in with fresh eyes and there's an opportunity for everybody to see each other where they are today, rather than where they were yesterday, or ten years ago. An opportunity, because you aren't in that environment 24 hours a day, to imagine a different future.
Angelica Richie
That is so often the feeling I have. Something interesting often happens around day four or five, where in conversation, either as a part of developing a script, a discussion group, or off to the side, folks will start wanting to tell their stories. I don't just mean their lived experience, but the cases that now have them in this situation, or whatever their life in the streets had been. They want to feel known. It feels like this label that everyone else in the facility knows, but we just showed up, and I'm not googling anybody before I get there so I don't know any of those details. It's a combination of wanting to feel seen and understood and I think also checking to see if “You think I'm this one way, but if you know the things I've done, will you view me any differently?”
It does feel very liberating to know the person I'm meeting today, and to see their traits and qualities, and see the way that they've grown. They will really describe how different they feel now to who they were before. It is the sense of freshness and present mindedness that I want our society to be able to have, because so many of these folks when they are released, are truly different when they're released than they were when they were incarcerated. It's a shame that they're not given the opportunity to live with the opportunities that they should be afforded given the time they've served and how much they've changed their lives. It's liberating, but there is this interesting checking in - but once you get to know “the real me” or “the former me,” will you feel the same? And it is actually pretty easy to feel the same because you feel so convinced of the person who's in front of you today.
Matthew Carey
Many of us experience that in our relationships, wherever we are. The idea that you meet somebody today, and you form this bond and this friendship and this trust. But there is this challenge of “If you knew everything about me, would you still feel the same way?” We find that in relationships, in business, and probably as artists as well.
Angelica Richie
Mm hmm. I think you're so right. This fear of being fully known and fully accepted, those are the things we're actually looking for. And that's I think, what makes a community feel really authentic. I have a few friends in New York City who I've known since college, and these are 14 year friendships. I just feel like there's so little explaining to do, because they're still here, and they know everything. When you meet someone new, they're like, “But you don't know everything.” And that sort of, you know, drip drop of filling in the gaps and seeing if it sticks.
It's different, of course, for me to do it for two weeks at a time than it will be for a community to do it when someone's released and they're truly reintegrating. But I think that we probably, as an American culture at least, need to get better at accepting fresh starts. I think this is probably something we are worse at now at least with cancel culture and the history available to us on the internet. People have less opportunity in some ways to progress because there's less anonymity from your past decisions. And of course, accountability is so important. There are plenty of times where that just needs to be the chief value. But what does it mean to truly start over, and is that available to anyone? And I guess, I think it should be.
Matthew Carey
Yeah, I think I agree. I'm not a fan of cancel culture, because I don't think that cancel culture is speaking to what happens next. If you cancel somebody or something, that stops it in its tracks, and it doesn't really offer a pathway to what should be next. And I think that is something that we need to address as a community.
Angelica Richie
Yeah. So you work with plenty of Americans, but you are in a different cultural ethos. Do you think that your nation, your community is doing that better or less judgmentally? How does it feel where you are?
Matthew Carey
I think that our culture in Australia exists so much on platforms that Americans have created in terms of social media, that there isn't much boundary between how those things exist. I've been witnessing it in my own local communities recently. When something goes down, there's a feeling of really wanting to stamp it out and cancel it rather than working on how can we heal, repair and move forward.
I get that that's actually harder. In a sense that we're asking more of ourselves to work out “How do we deal with this? How do we deal with the trauma? How do we find a way forward?” It's complicated, but I think it's something we need to address.
Angelica Richie
Yeah. I think sort of the corollary to even things I was talking about with privacy laws for the work that happens inside being viewed outside. Those are all victim protections laws and I think they're incredibly important. We hate nuance, right? Nuance is the worst. That's why we keep watching World War Two movies, because we know exactly who the good guys are exactly what the bad guys are, and no one needs to go into it. We don't want to talk about it, or think about it or humanize anybody, we're like, cool. Got it. Checkmark. Nuance is challenging for everyone to get their spirit engaged with and I think there is nuance to who has the bandwidth to do that healing and do that reconciliation.
I don't personally think it should have to be a victim, I totally understand why a victim wouldn't want to be surprised by someone who committed a crime against them’s face on the internet unexpectedly. I think that's fair. There are probably people who have been so wronged, that they shouldn't be tasked with the burden of reconciliation. But asking - who is it that is not so underwater with those things that they can actually step into the challenge of ongoing work and see it through. For anyone who feels like they maybe don't have as much personal baggage around some of those issues. I think that's where the calling is to kind of dig in. Get in there.
Matthew Carey
One of the things that I was thinking about as I watched this program was that we've all felt a bit more of a sense of isolation, and what it means to have some of our liberties feel like they're taken away from us over the past six months with the pandemic we've been experiencing. Not as much in Australia, but certainly if I was living in an apartment in New York City and hardly ever leaving it, then I'm in a reasonably confined space with a lot less options than what I would be used to.
One of the things I thought about watching the show is that if I was one of these incarcerated people inside the facilities watching, or knowing about what was going on outside in terms of COVID-19, in terms of the Black Lives Matters movement, and really unable to participate in it in any way, there might be a real frustration. Partly because you have a voice that feels like it wants to be heard in some of these matters, but especially not being able to be there for the people in your community, the people in your families that are maybe feeling a pain, feeling of fear that is different to what they'd be feeling before. You're not able to be there for them and be there with them.
Angelica Richie
Yes, the most human version of that right is something people are experiencing no matter where they are, of have someone sick, and you can't visit them in the hospital because of the precautions we're taking for COVID. And just how horrible that feels. And that is true because of the pandemic and also true because of someone's sentence potentially.
It's not to be overlooked that prisons and jails have not responded excellently to the pandemic. The infection rates and the death tolls inside facilities have been really serious and the US has the oldest prison population of anywhere in the world because the sentences are so long.
I think sometimes people hear that and they're like, “Are we putting away 50 year olds for life?” Well, no, but we're putting away 18 year olds for life. So that started in the 80s. Here we are now, and people are getting older all the time. So the population itself is far more vulnerable. And issues of systemic racism. I mean, the criminal justice system is biased, it's incredibly biased. That means that we incarcerate more black and brown folks for the same crimes, or than we do white offenders with same details all the way along. Control for all those other factors, and it is disproportionate sentencing and convictions for black and brown folks. So these things have been happening in our culture and in conversation in the last six months have been so relevant to the population that's incarcerated, and how far will this project specifically reach? Of course, I have no way to know that but to at least know that there's an opportunity for those voices who are so affected by both of these huge moments in history, for their words, exactly - to get out to a larger portion of society, a larger swath of the population - feels like a very important step for us to find a way to say “How can we hear from them? How can we understand what their point of view adds to this conversation?” Because it's certainly more interesting than mine.
Matthew Carey
There’s some sort of responsibility, I think, once we start hearing the voices of people that are inside these facilities, to recognize that there are individuals, there are real humans in there. And they have things that are on their mind, they have things that are worth sharing. And once I saw this show, I couldn't unsee it. You can't not think about the fact that there are people there that have messages that deserve to be heard, and that maybe have not been listened to.
There was a piece that really touched me, and it surprised me, created by a man called Ed. It was a piece that was through the eyes of a dog. He was looking out the window waiting for his humans to come back, realizing that they were going through the things that were going on in this moment, they were going through the Black Lives Matters movement and the protest. They were feeling scared. And I think one of the things he talked about in the program was that the dog has an unconditional love for his humans. And I thought there's something about that, that by giving the dog that opportunity to offer unconditional love...you know - for any of us - that's something that is not necessarily easy to come by.
I think that perhaps Shining Light’s background in the church is something that sort of resonates with that as well. Certainly, if we think about God, or whatever we see as our spiritual power, there is that belief, that hope, that there is a sense of unconditional love that maybe sometimes we deserve, and sometimes we're worthy of. It was just a really powerful piece. I wonder whether you had any response to that.
Angelica Richie
I love this piece, I think it was the sleeper hit of the night. I didn't produce it. My colleague, Rachel Tracy was the producer on it and she's worked with the author Ed. I have to say, when I first saw it, I at first felt very confused. You got the tone of so many of the other pieces, which felt a little bit more like, down and serious and edgy. And then it was like, “What am I watching?” the first time I saw it. And then it just cracks open your heart in such a powerful way.
We offered our alumni who are incarcerated three prompts to work from. One was “Shining Light.” The second was “Dear COVID-19.” And the third was “What I wish you knew.” Rachel said that Ed just really wanted to write something that would make people feel hopeful, and make people feel cared for. And so the title of his piece is “What I wish you knew - I love you,” from the point of view of a family dog. I do think it's so powerful to connect with - animals are so special, right? They're just the best- and what it means to be in a judgment free relationship, which is what our pets have for us. I'm a cat person myself, but sort of a toss up on if its judgment free from a cat...
Matthew Carey
Not quite so judgment free, but...
Angelica Richie
Right, but they're committed in their own way. You got to work for it a little bit, but they're committed.
Yeah, but I do think that the question of where is unconditional love and care coming from. I believe that that comes in the person of God, and for a lot of people that might feel like the universe or spirit, or their higher self. I think the tragedy is that that is not how the Christian Church has conveyed itself to so many people. I think universally, people have been hurt by Christians, including Christians...It's almost a miracle that any Christian remains practicing, right? I've been plenty hurt by the church myself, even as a practicing Christian.
So we would love to imagine that everyone experiences unconditional love in a way that's untainted from people of faith. But that's not the case, because humanity is flawed and selfish. And there's a huge breakdown that can happen in God's character being expressed through fallible humans. But in the meantime, we have this perfect little capsule of what that might feel like from animals. I'm so glad you love that piece. I loved it, too, and I had so many friends texting me in real time, as soon as I saw it being like, “How dare you not warn me?! I'm a mess. I'm crying so hard.” It was so powerful and so creatively done.
Matthew Carey
There was an artist that I think works on your team that sang a song for the program. And as I understand it, she was formerly incarcerated, and she was released from prison, and now she works in helping other people present their case for potentially getting paroled.
Angelica Richie
Yes, that's right. Yeah. Naomi Blout Wilson. She’s on a steering committee of folks who were formerly incarcerated who are now released, who we work with, and advisory capacities. And then she's also as you could see a talented musician in her own right.
[Music]
She was a participant at that very first facility, SCI Muncie in Pennsylvania. Shining Light worked with her while she was incarcerated, in maybe 2017, and within a year, she was released after 37 years.
If you've been given a life sentence without parole, you're never going to come up for parole. So the amount of legal appeals and petitions you have to file to have your sentence changed - commutation is “We are giving you a different sentence than you got before.” It's not the lowest amount of years served, it's just a different sentence. Her commutation was approved, and she was released and she now professionally is working with women to go through that same process.
In Pennsylvania recently, they passed a law that said juvenile lifers would be permitted to appeal for commutations to receive parole. Imagine someone who was given a life sentence without the possibility of parole at 16, or 17. I've worked with men who are in that case, who when I met them, they'd been incarcerated for 47 years. Their entire life was behind bars. What kind of a threat is that person now in their 60s? Laws are changing gradually and then there needs to be people to support those laws changing. Shining Light does this incredible, programmatic work, but the other important work that has to be done is legal and it’s policy. Someone like Naomi, who has first hand experience and getting herself through that process successfully, is now able to come alongside other women who are in need of the same kind of guidance that she found for herself.
Matthew Carey
Well, I certainly believe in justice, but I wouldn't want to be still being held accountable today for things I did when I was 16. For somebody that hasn't had that experience it's hard to comprehend.
Angelica Richie
Mm hmm. It's just so many years. When you think of how much the world has changed... You know, she's such a champ. My parents have a little bit of a struggle adjusting to remote work right now. Imagine if you have been incarcerated the majority of your life since the early 80s, how different does the world feel now? It's so much time to have passed. It's so many cultural seasons to have passed.
Matthew Carey
Yes. Now, you talked a bit about this and I was interested. Given that the way you used to present the program, you'd go into the facilities and work with people directly. Now that you've been doing it remotely, what sort of access to communication do you have? Because once again, I only really know from watching TV shows and and movies, but I see a phone against the wall or people talking to each other through a big perspex window. What sort of technology can you use these days to communicate?
Angelica Richie
First of all, it's a little bit different the way communication happens, COVID or not for volunteer staff and programs versus family or friends. So the way that someone might make a personal phone call or go on a personal visit, the way we operate as an organization with volunteer and program status is always going to be different. There's a little bit less immediacy available in that way, because we're going through program directors and chaplains and social workers all the time. But as a lot of facilities have had to catch up technologically with COVID, they've found ways to make video conferencing more available and we have had facilities that have made video conferencing more available to us, which is kind of a shock, but awesome.
I was able to do two video conferences with incarcerated men who I'd worked with a year ago, and the calls that we had, worked to develop their scripts, which will be produced in the second round of this project. I was able to give them some notes on their scripts, encourage them to go in a couple of fresh directions. Get questions that were vision lookbook type questions for feel and images that they had associated with their scripts. So I was actually able to do that in August, which is great.
We are also working on a program that's a character development course that will be done with one of these partner facilities, piloting it in video conferences with three or four men at a time, throughout different housing units. So we'll probably work with about 20 on this first pilot of this course. But that could potentially be a part of reentry curriculum statewide in Pennsylvania. That's the goal. There is this new avenue that people are getting comfortable with what it looks like to do that. When you think of scalability, it's massive once you can start to do remote work -which just wasn't something most facilities were equipped to do, very frequently at all. So that's sort of the new horizon and I think, can coexist with our in person programming and the future, in a way that could be really effective and really expand the reach, which would be awesome. To be able to not only support long term, the folks that we've worked with in the past, but also to continue to add more to our community.
Matthew Carey
That's great. Angelica, in terms of support, where does the funding come from for shining light? Is there any government funding for that, or is it all coming from private sponsorship?
Angelica Richie
It is primarily private donors, people who are donating on a recurring monthly basis or one time gifts throughout the year. Shining Light has received, the last couple of years, small grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, which is a big deal in the US. National Endowment for the Arts in the US is kind of an official stamp of ‘someone's looked at this programming, and believes that it is a good use of resources and has a high impact.’ So that has happened a couple of times, but it's a pretty minor portion of the overall budget for Shining Light.
Something I really appreciate about the organization is that they're really not looking to exploit artists. So whenever possible, they're paying us for our work. If I were in a position to do it on a completely volunteer basis, I would do it. But I can't typically take two weeks out of my day jobs in New York City and continue to pay my rent, and they know that. So the choice to compensate artists, the choice to bring high quality equipment into the facility so that the work can be presented in its best light - all of those things take resources and it takes a lot of partners who are coming alongside the work and doing what they can - even if they're not directly participating - to support this mission of creating opportunities for life change in prison and beyond.
Matthew Carey
That's great on a lot of levels. It's great that it's set up in a way that is able to help support the people that are doing the work. It's wonderful that there are people that are willing to step up and help fund the work. It's great that you've got recognition from the NEA because I gather that they don't distribute their funds that easily. But it's also intriguing to me that the money is coming from the National Endowment of the Arts, which is famously underfunded, instead of coming from whoever funds the correctional system, because that's a billion or trillion dollar industry, right?
Angelica Richie
Yes, yeah, there is a lot of money that goes into the carceral system, for sure. But then also, I maybe don't even know the details of how the privatization of so many prisons interacts with that, and who takes responsibility for where money comes in where money goes out? That is a deep well, that I have not cultivated any expertise on.
Matthew Carey
Angelica, as you said, this is not the only work you do and I know that you do other work as an artist. How has your experience with Shining Light impacted how you think about and approach your work outside these facilities?
Angelica Richie
Hmm, that's a great question. You know, I think sort of the simplest version is that what qualifies as a crisis or an emergency has really changed for me. Scenarios and auditions or in shows that previously might have elicited a really severe emotional response. I'm actually just like, “I don't know, if it's not prison, it's not an emergency.”
If you're an ER doctor, or you're working in a prison, you know about emergencies. But my wig looking bad is not an emergency. It is a big perspective shift on what crisis looks like, having seen people whose day to day life is actually in crisis.
For all the times that as a dramatic actor, you're like, “I just don't feel supportive in my work.” That might be something as simple as my scene partner keeps going up on one line? That is a very different feeling than “I can't get access to the program that I need to complete my mandatory volunteer hours for parole,” it's just so different. So it's massively perspective-bringing for that specifically.
I also do think sometimes about situations that feel like a stretch for me, “Oh, this is a little out of my comfort zone, I don't really know if I can do it.” I'm in my 30s. And doing things you feel that you aren't great at are scary, because there's a lot of things I am pretty great at. It’s like, “Oh, no, I know, I have to do something that I'm only so-so at, that feels unfair.” But I know that I ask these men time and time again to do something that they're not comfortable with. And I promise them that the growth will experience and the impact it will have on others is so worth the discomfort. To be able to hear my words wash back onto myself - regarding the value of stretching and those moments - is incredibly useful. Then to not just hear myself saying it in a way that's hollow, but to be supported by this community of so many brave individuals I've seen do it successfully time and again. To feel like in those moments, I have a community of brothers who I've seen stretch themselves in that way creatively - that means I can probably do it too. If they were able to do it under more severe circumstances with less guarantee of return than by Gaul, I better find it in myself to step up and do it too.
Matthew Carey
In the small amount of your work that I have seen, I do think you continue to step up and do new things and innovate in the sort of work you're doing. You keep challenging yourself to extend your voice further and further. As we start to wrap up - Volume One of the program was released towards the end of September. What's the timeframe for when Volume Two will be released?
Angelica Richie
Late winter/Early spring. I think probably is the most likely, we already have the script. I mentioned that program that's happening remotely, that's going to be an eight week course that is moving into center focus for Shining Light right now, and then these video projects might come in a little bit after that.
At the moment, we're mostly celebrating the release of Volume One, and really looking forward to hearing, both from the folks who wrote these pieces, and also sending in the encouragement and response we've gotten from the public into them so that they can have a sense for the impact that it's having and the resonance that it's having in sort of the public discourse of people who are able to watch the program and be impacted by the work.
Matthew Carey
I love that you've found a way to broadcast these messages and this work outside the prison system in a way that perhaps you weren't able to when you are creating performances by the people that are incarcerated for their community. So I think that's great.
Angelica, there's so much that you work on that we haven't touched on in this particular conversation, but if people wanted to see perhaps one thing that you'd worked on in recent history, what would you like to direct them towards?
Angelica Richie
I think that a big contrast and a bright spot for my quarantine has been the digital publication I've been managing with my friend Jordan Aragon, who's our lead graphic designer. It's called the Quaranzine and it's a monthly digital publication that has comedy, satire, essays, recipes, activities. We sort of joke that it's a cross between The Onion and Highlights Magazine for adults. I don't know if Highlights made it to Australia. It's like mazes, and crossword bundles. The Quaranzine is a quirky, fun, light hearted monthly publication. It's a very different tone, but really fun and a great collective of artists and illustrators writers who are trying to brighten up people's life on a monthly basis,
Matthew Carey
I'll have to get you back to have another conversation about that, because I've seen that and I'm fascinated by what you discover when you set yourself a regular ship date. When you've got to bring out an edition once each month, what needs to happen to make that happen, and what you create that you wouldn't have created if you hadn't created that ship date for yourself.
Angelica Richie
Sleep deprivation, that's what you discover!
Matthew Carey
Well, I do hope we can pick this conversation up again sometime soon. But for today, thank you so much, Angelica, for your time with me today. But also the time that you've invested in creating this program with Shining Light, because I think it's really important and I'm really pleased to be able to share it with more people.
Angelica Richie
Thank you so much. My thanks to you for watching the program. The investment of an hour to hear from folks we don't normally hear from you know - obviously this platform is incredible and I'm happy to be able to share what we're doing with more people - but even just for you personally to give an hour of your time to watch and take in those messages, that is the first and foremost thing to say thank you for.