Theater for Incarcerated Women Favorite 

Practitioner: 

Date: 

Jan 1 1989

Location: 

San Francisco CA

Creative Time, Social Practice Archive: In 1989 actress/writer Rhodessa Jones was conducting classes at the San Francisco County Jail. Working with female inmates, she developed material for a performance piece called Big Butt Girls, Hard-Headed Women based on their lives and shared experiences. Recognizing the emotions and issues the inmates often shared, including guilt and depression, and how productive theater and performance could be in addressing them, Jones founded the Medea Project: Theater for Incarcerated Women. The project's larger goal is to reduce the number of women returning to jail after their release. The Medea Project has produced a number of pieces since its inception that focus on a wide range of issues. The performance Requiem for a Dead Love from 1998, for instance, was the result of workshops Jones conducted with survivors of domestic violence.

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