A Midsummer Night's Dream in Prison Film Screening and Q&A

Outside the Two Rivers Correctional Institution near Umatilla, Oregon, the rocky hills of the Columbia River gorge are formidable yet verdant. Inside its locked walls, 18 incarcerated inmates, many from BIPOC communities, have volunteered to work together with a visiting theater director to cast, rehearse and perform William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Nights Dream, the comedic tale of love, false appearances and reconciliation.

The theater-making process enables the inmates to safely assume societal and gender identities different from the personas they present under lock down. As rehearsals progress, and relationships deepen, they open up to reflect on their deeply personal fragilities, regrets, hopes and dreams with clarity and self compassion. 

The play is performed for a live audience which includes family members they have not seen for some time. It is clear afterwards that the project has encouraged inner-healing and release. Like the Shakespearian characters in the play itself, the inmates have arrived at the possibility of transformation and the reimagining of their own life stories.

A Midsummer Night's Dream in Prison, documentary, 60 min.