'You love me not!': Program aims to inspire inmates through Shakespeare

 

FRANKLIN, Wis. (CBS 58) -- A six-week program led to a big performance Thursday. Eight inmates at the Milwaukee County Community Reintegration Center (CRC) received certificates for completing a theater course aimed at helping the men better process their emotions and past traumas.

The tool for helping them do that? Shakespeare. Anthony Dodd, the assistant superintendent at the CRC, brought in Feast of Crispian, a group that mostly works with veterans, using theater to help rejoin society.

Dodd said he's long subscribed to the idea theater, and the arts in general, are a valuable tool in helping incarcerated people develop some of the social skills they'd been lacking.

"It teaches them self-regulation. It teaches them conflict resolution," Dodd said. "But most importantly, it teaches them empathy."

Feast of Crispian Program Director Nancy Smith-Watson said she jumped at the chance to stage a program at the CRC last fall. She said Shakespeare, specifically, is a perfect fit for helping the men learn to express their emotions in a productive way.

"It is poetry, and it's just full of imagery and it's full of metaphor," Smith-Watson said of Shakespeare's works. "And imagery and metaphor hook emotion out of us."

While the program has room for 12 participants, Smith-Watson said it's hard to always have a full class since there's a constant churn as some residents complete their sentences while others receive their sentences.

However, those were able to make it through six two-hour course said they already felt the benefits.

Evan Trewyn, who was serving a sentence for battery, said he felt inspired by an exercise where the men sat in a circle and divulged their past traumas. Beyond that, he said some of the simplest exercises might've been the most helpful.

"We've learned a lot of, like, breathing techniques, learning how to calm down," he said. "And instead of having an outburst, being able to express that through art."

Jason Ashley is awaiting a plea/sentencing hearing for charges including fleeing an officer, burglary and throwing/discharging bodily fluid at a public safety worker. He had a prominent role in the Shakespearian performance, and he read a poem he penned after the performance.

Ashley said he'd never seen the performance arts as a way to express anger but found it to be therapeutic.

Both Ashley and Trewyn said they first volunteered for the courses because it was a way to get out of their dorm in general population for a couple hours. They both said they've since come to see it as a more valuable escape than they realized.

"In where we are, it's like, you're in a high-stress environment," he said. "You could be angry a lot of times, probably at no one but yourself, and in some of the scenes, you get to get that anger out of your body, you know what I mean?"

Program organizers said they hoped this approach will have a multigenerational impact. After all, many of the inmates have children, and if the men are better able to handle their own emotions, they'll be better equipped to respond to kids' emotional outbursts.