Tag: Aryn Bartley

The Roles of Theatre and Drama in the Criminal Justice System

Presenter: Hannah Joel − English, Sociology

Faculty Mentor(s): Aryn Bartley, Ce Rosenow

Session: (Virtual) Oral Panel—Read, Speak and Act

Prisons deter the public from engaging in criminal behavior and reform the incarcerated. Despite the goal of deterrence, however, statistics reveal flaws within current U.S. rehabilitation practices. According to a Bureau of Justice Statistics study that followed 404,638 incarcerated individuals upon their release from prison, 67.8% were rearrested within three years of release. 76.6% were rearrested within five years. The alarming recidivism rates suggest that the criminal justice system is failing to properly rehabilitate incarcerated individuals and that they are not given a chance to transform their lives. The criminal justice system is overlooking a critical aspect: the importance of prison education. Theatre and drama programs are examples of prison education that can be highly effective in transforming an incarcerated individual. To analyze the roles these programs play in the criminal justice system, I researched the benefits such programs bring to the lives of incarcerated individuals. Since this is a preliminary study, I relied on the testimonies from incarcerated individuals and articles on prison education programs. These sources demonstrate that theatre and drama programs helped change incarcerated individuals’ lives by developing empathy and reflection on their deviant behavior. Recognizing the role that such programs play in the prison system is crucial in terms of understanding and considering what we can do to mitigate the chances of recidivism in the future.

On Oranges: Creating a Theater Lobby Experience Using Dramaturgical Principles

Presenter(s): Rachel Cooper

Co Presenter(s): Max Daniels, Alexander Fix, Brian Janisch, Cassidy Malick, Giulia Sala, Zoe Wassman

Faculty Mentor(s): Aryn Bartley

Poster 85-86

Session: Social Sciences & Humanities

Our purpose in this creative project was to explore themes from Lane Community College’s spring 2019 production of The Wolves by Sarah DeLappe through the medium of a lobby presentation informed by dramaturgical principles. Dramaturgy is the study and exploration of theatrical elements not explicitly stated in the playwright’s literal text, such as cultural allusions and performance history. A lobby presentation is a practical application of dramaturgical studies and is used to prime the audience for a play before they enter the theater. We performed an in- depth analysis of the text and its context, synthesizing our findings into a multimodal (visual, aural, and linguistic) display that represented the play’s larger themes, such as feminism, sports as community, and U.S. teen girl culture. Our process was to choose which elements to emphasize without compromising the playwright’s vision. We decided to highlight the juxtaposition between the daily aspects of U.S. teen girl culture with the far larger international dilemmas discussed in the text, and the indirect influence they have upon each other. Our presentation illuminates the way the lobby can establish an overall tone as well as a connection between the audience and the world of the play.