PlayNotes - Season 50, Issue 5 - Clyde's

Discussion Series

Join us for a Book Club-style Page to Stage with the Portland Public Library. Check out your copy of the script and join us two weeks before previews of each Mainstage Production. Scripts are available at the reference desk at the Main Branch of the Portland Public Library. This year discussions will be held in the Rines Room at 5pm two weeks before a show opens. Feel free to come and chat about the plays with Literary Manager, Todd Brian Backus; his Directing and Dramaturgy Apprentices, and special guests. Visit portlandlibrary.com/programs-events/ for more information.

The Artistic Perspective, hosted by Artistic Director Anita Stewart, is an opportunity for audience members to delve deeper into the themes of the show through conversation with special guests. A different scholar, visiting artist, playwright, or other expert will join the discussion each time. The Artistic Perspective discussions are held after the first Sunday matinee performance.

Curtain Call discussions offer a rare opportunity for audience members to talk about the production with the performers. Through this forum, the audience and cast explore topics that range from the process of rehearsing and producing the text to character development to issues raised by the work Curtain Call discussions are held after the second Sunday matinee performance.

All discussions are free and open to the public. Show attendance is not required. To subscribe to a discussion series performance, please call the Box Office at 207.774.0465.

HannaH Cordes, Paula Vogel, anita stewart, and todd Brian BaCkus in a talkBaCk, Portland stage ComPany

Clyde's by Lynn Nottage

PlayNotes Season 50 Editorial Staff

Editor in Chief

Todd Brian Backus

Contributors

Ellis Collier, Julia Jennings, Ellery Kenyon, Alex Oleksy, Jessi Stier

Copy Editor

Adam Thibodeau

Cover Illustration

James A. Hadley

Portland Stage Company Educational Programs, like PlayNotes, are generously supported through the annual donations of hundreds of individuals and businesses, as well as special funding from:

The Simmons Foundation

Susie Konkel Harry Konkel

Harold & Betty Cottel Family Fund

Letter from the Editors

Dear PlayNotes Readers,

We're so excited to have you with us for our next production in our 50th season!

In this issue, we explore the world of Clyde's, a play by Pullitzer Prize-winning writer Lynn Nottage that explores the ramifications of the American prison system. Following the five formerly incarcerated employees of a sandwich shop in Reading, PA, Nottage's work asks what it means to survive in a country determined to keep you out of sight, and out of mind.

Want to learn about this production of Clyde's? Head over to our "Interview with Director Dominique Rider” (pg. 10), and our look at Portland Stage's culinary performances with "Food On Stage" (pg. 16).

Curious about the societal context for this play? Check out the article "Cooking Up a Fresh Start" (pg. 18) or learn about Nottage's focus on the American working class in "Lynn Nottage and Reading, PA" (pg. 20).

When compiling each issue of PlayNotes, we strive to provide articles and interviews that give you insight into what the process has been like behind the scenes (see articles in Portland Stage's Clyde's), contain pertinent information about the play’s setting and major themes (“The World of Clyde's”), and provide deeper dives into specific subjects that compelled our literary department (“Digging Deeper”). We include a list of books, plays, and other media that we hope audiences will access for more cultural content that relates to the play (“Recommended Resources”).

We are so excited to have you join us at the half-way mark of our 50th season, and we hope you enjoy seeing Clyde's.

Sincerely yours,

The Portland Stage Literary Department

Todd Brian Backus

Julia Jennings

Alex Oleksy

Jessi Stier

About the Play

by Jessi Stier

In an interview with the Donmar Warehouse, Lynn Nottage defines Clyde’s as “a play about creativity, humanity, and how all of us have something to contribute to our society—that everyone brings their own special ingredient.” Inspired by her research about the effects of the declining heavy industry on former steelworkers in Reading, Pennsylvania, for her 2015 play Sweat, Nottage wanted to further hone in on the city’s changing economic and ethnic composition for her next piece.

Clyde’s follows the formerly incarcerated kitchen staff at a truck stop sandwich shop as they make choices about how to best navigate their lives out of prison. They are led by two polarizing forces: restaurant manager Clyde, who has no faith in their potential postincarceration, and Montrellous, who believes wholeheartedly that a passion for cooking can propel them to see themselves as more than what society dictates. Their journey of self-discovery and confronting the past forces viewers to examine our own biases about race, class, and the prison system. Overall, Clyde's is a story about living with your history, reclaiming who you are, and how no dream is too small to find collective purpose—even the quest to create the perfect sandwich.

Clyde’s premiered at the Guthrie Theater in 2019 under the title Floyd’s. For this first

production, the cast and creative team visited All Square—a Minneapolis sandwich shop that employs individuals who have been formerly incarcerated—and drew inspiration for the direction of the play from conversations with the staff. Clyde’s made its way to Broadway’s Second Stage Theater in 2021. In conjunction with the show’s themes, the Broadway production supported a series of social justice initiatives aimed at people affected by the US criminal justice system. This programming included a paid apprenticeship at Second Stage for impacted youth, an art exhibit at the Hayes Theater featuring works by people affected by the justice system, and a job fair aimed at connecting formerly incarcerated individuals with job opportunities and training.

Clyde’s was nominated for multiple Tony Awards, including Best Play and Best Costume Design; three actors were also nominated for Best Featured Actor or Actress in a Play. Since then, the impact of Clyde’s has been seen across the country through regional productions, as it was named the most produced play of the 2022–2023 season by American Theatre. Portland Stage is honored to produce the Maine premiere of this deeply relevant piece, directed by Dominique Rider in their Portland Stage debut, as part of our 50th Anniversary Season.

a model of tHe Clyde's set, designed By german Cardenas.

Pre-Show Questions

by Ellis Collier & Ellery Kenyon

1. Think of someone in your life who has motivated you. How did they do it? Were they kind? Harsh? How do you motivate yourself? How do you push yourself? Discuss.

2. Design your perfect sandwich. What kind of bread would it be on? Toasted or not? What kinds of toppings, and how are they arranged? Try to be as specific as possible.

3. In the interview on page 10, Director Dominique Rider talks about the idea of 'regard'. What does it mean to regard someone? Does it change the attention that we give to someone and the permission we give them to tell us their full story?

4. What do you know about the American Justice System? Read the Article on page #. In what ways does the American Justice system hurt or help people? Do you believe that someone who has “done their time” should be able to fully re-enter society? What would that look like to you?

5. Read the “Prison Abolition” article. This article paints a grim picture of the american prison system and the harm it causes to incarcerated folks, it also offers some alternatives to how that harm could be avoided.The website transformharm.org has several articles about proposed solutions to the prison system which you can use as another resource. What do you think the priorities of a criminal justice system should be? Should it do more to take care of people who have broken laws? How would you design a different system?

Post-Show Questions

by Ellis Collier & Ellery Kenyon

1. The whole play of Clydes takes place in the kitchen of the sandwich shop. Why do we only see this area? How does that change how we see the characters?

2. What were your initial impressions of each character? How did your opinion change throughout the show? What moments changed your mind? How did you feel about each character in the final scene?

3. Why are the characters so intent on making the perfect sandwich? What does the sandwich represent to each character? To you? To the audience?

4. Who is the main character? Who is the hero? Are they different people? Why? Is there a villain? Why do you feel that way? What do you think the play is saying is good and what do you think it’s saying is bad?

5. The ending of Clyde's leaves a lot open to interpretation. What do you think it means? What does the final moment mean to each character who works in the shop and what does it mean to Clyde?

About the Characters

by Jessi Stier

Name: Breezy Leigh (AEA)

Character: Clyde

Tyrannical owner of the sandwich shop; formerly incarcerated. She is confident, intimidating, invulnerable, and eager to exert and maintain power over her employees. She does not see potential in a life post-incarceration for her staff. She enjoys humiliating others, and is intuitive in how to best hurt people (given the pain she’s experienced herself).

Name: Lance E. Nichols (AEA)

Character: Montrellous

Head sandwich chef; formerly incarcerated. He is an excellent cook, and is seen as a “sensei” of good cooking by his fellow employees. He is eager to encourage his team to be more than what society dictates post-incarceration. Wise, patient, and inspiring, he enjoys being a mentor in both sandwichmaking and navigating life’s challenges.

Name: Roland Ruiz (AEA)

Character: Rafael

Line cook; formerly incarcerated. A recovering addict with a big heart. He tries his best to be suave, but the results are mostly goofy—yet charming in their own way. He is earnest, caring, sensitive, and wants to be taken seriously by those he loves.

Name: Latrisha Talley (AEA)

Character: Letitia

Line cook; formerly incarcerated. She is a single mother to a child with health issues, who she is deeply dedicated to. She longs to be treated with care by a romantic partner, and to be seen for who she is. Exuberant and sharp-tongued, and a passionate advocate for what she feels is right. She is fiercely independent, and is slowly learning to let people in post-incarceration.

Name: Derek Chariton (AEA)

Character: Jason

Formerly incarcerated. He accepted white supremacist tattoos while in prison, which he claims were a means to survive. Through his short-tempered and stoic nature, he is slowly attempting to reclaim his past. He wants to be seen.

An Interview with the Director Dominique Rider

Edited for Length and Clarity by Assistant Director Jessi Stier

Jessi Stier (JS): Can you tell us a little bit about your theatrical journey?

Dominique Rider (DR): Sure! I started off primarily as a performer, and then when I got to high school I started having directing thoughts. I didn’t go to a specialized high school, I went to a public school in Texas. When I got to college, I was set on being a double major in theater and political science. One day I was in a production of the Scottish play [Macbeth], and I was like—I hate acting. I don’t feel autonomous, I don’t feel like I’m actually able to make creative decisions, and I don’t like feeling that I’m at the whims of other people. That started to affect the way I thought about directing. I was like, I think I need to do something else here. And, it was simultaneous that all of my friends in that theater department who were Black or a person of color weren’t receiving the same opportunities as our white counterparts. There needed to be a counter to the way the department was thinking about theater. So, I started directing to respond to that need. I think I graduated having directed eight pieces in college, while most folks graduated with about three. So, I realized that this was what I wanted to do. I didn’t quite understand how to be a director in the professional world, and wanted to go somewhere where I could understand that. I was torn between New York and Chicago, landed in New York, and haven been working pretty consistently since I moved. I made my Off-Broadway debut last year, and this is my regional debut, so they’re happening in a year of each other, which is really fun and exciting. That’s the journey so far.

JS: Tell us a little bit about your process as a director. How did you approach Clyde's?

DR: Clyde’s is very funny because it’s the most norm-core play that I’ve done in a long time. I don’t normally do plays that are staunch naturalism or realism anymore, and am usually working in plays that are a little more poetic and weird, structurally or formally. In thinking

about Clyde’s, I asked myself, “What does the play demand and require of the people inside of it, and how do I approach that?” For me, the process was just becoming really familiar with the script, figuring out the take I wanted to apply, how that take would manifest either in relation to or in contention with the text, and how that could come to life. There was a previous version of this where the stage was much smaller, with everyone on top of each other all the time as a bit of a pressure cooker. So, I think for me the process for me was really like, here’s the ideas—how do we then peel those back, and start over again? How do we continuously work on that idea? I had thoughts about how this is a realistic and psychological play, and just plotted through and charted what the internal beats were. Then, once we got into rehearsal, we began to build those things with the performers to see if the take worked (it does!) and to see if the things I’ve been thinking about before there were bodies in the space are still true (they mostly are).

direCtor dominique rider

JS: Can you describe your vision or goals for this play?

DR: I really only have one! It’s the understanding that people who have been formerly incarcerated or currently incarcerated are deserving of the same respect and recognition as everyone else. I think there’s a way to direct this play where everything is really broad and you’re just focused on the comedy. But for me, more than the comedy, I’m concerned about the transformation that these people go through as they endure another type of prison—being stuck in the sandwich shop and being made to pay for everything they’ve done wrong again—even though we’re told that when a person exits prison they are “rehabilitated” and supposed to be able to reenter society. But as we watch this play, we learn that that’s impossible and a lie. In the midst of that lie, what can you actually do as you try to survive and pull the pieces of your life back together? I’m really concerned with these characters being treated with the respect and kindness and care that I think they are deserving of, regardless of what the world might say about them.

JS: What are you most excited for audiences to see in this production?

DR: I’m excited for audiences to encounter characters or people that they might not be used to encountering—or people that they might otherwise write off in their day-today lives that they need to consider. I don’t think that Clyde’s is going to make anyone an abolitionist, though I would love that, but I think hopefully if we do our jobs right, it will make them reconsider the way they think about folks who have been formerly incarcerated, especially for mostly non-violent crimes.

JS: We’re so excited to have you at Portland Stage! How are you feeling about your experience working at the theater so far?

DR: It’s great! I’m having a great time. I really like how walkable Portland is, and everyone in the theater that I’ve encountered so far who is working on this production is really game and professional in ways that I really appreciate.

JS: Maine is a predominantly white state, and our audiences are a product of that community. What do you envision the impact will be of putting on this play in this geographical place?

DR: In her new book, [Ordinary Notes] Christina Sharpe writes a lot about the power of regard. I want these people—people who have been formerly incarcerated, people who are suffering under the prison system—to be regarded more. To be considered in ways they maybe haven’t been considered before. I hope that, through the laughter, there is an understanding that these are people with very real circumstances who are trying to do what is best for them and their lives, and the world they live in. I really hope there is a sense of regard around these characters, and that folks who are not working on the production come to regard them with the same intensity and care that I think all of us who are building it have.

JS: Clyde’s was the most produced play in the 2022–23 American theater season. Why do you think this story is so compelling right now?

DR: My first thought is that, in the wake of 2020, there is a desire to produce Black plays. I think this play is very easy on paper to produce. There are two Black people, one Latine person, one white person, and then Clyde can be whatever you need her to be. I also think that a lot of people are producing this play because people want to laugh right now. There is a belief that laughter makes us forget about the circumstances we’re in. With all the things going on in the world, I think theater’s impulse is that if you laugh, maybe you can make it through. Lastly, I think that currently people are trying to find ways to talk about formerly incarcerated folks reentering the world and society at large. So, I think all of those things have come together to create a moment where folks feel that this play is relevant politically, and also reflects that what we need right now is laughter.

Community Connections: Interview with Joseph Jackson

Edited for length and clarity by Julia Jennings

Clyde’s by Lynn Nottage provides an intimate window into life after incarceration by examining a group of system-impacted people trying to rebuild their lives. Everyday in Maine, people face similar struggles both within the carceral system, and upon reentry into society. To get a better grasp on the current status of incarceration and prison reform in Maine, we sat down with Joseph Jackson, Executive Director of Maine Prisoner Advocacy Coalition, co-Executive Director of Maine Inside Out, co-founder of Maine Youth Justice, and founder of the Maine State Prison branch of the NAACP.

Julia Jennings: I know that you have a long history of working in prisoner advocacy, specifically around the Maine Department of Corrections (DOC). Could you give me a brief summary of your work in this field?

Joseph Jackson: I have a long history—I did 20 years inside. [And since then] I've been doing social justice work for 20 years or more. I took what I learned from [the inside]; it helped me understand that we need to have outside people and outside organizations involved in the conversation for prison reform. So when I got out, it was a natural fit for me to become a voice for people who don't really get a chance to have their voices out there, and to talk about what they need and how we change some of the things that are wrong with the system.

We engage in direct dialogue with the Department of Corrections on a one-on-one basis. We bring issues there, and if we fail to make any headway on those, we engage in a number of acts, including engaging the legislature to make changes.We have groups that are engaged with incarcerated residents, and they tell us what's going on in facilities, some of the concerns they have—because it's a continually-evolving environment based on policy and practice, which shift and change often.

And then we have support for people in transition, people that are reentering society. The way I see it, we're all in different stages of reentry, so the barriers that one person faces, somebody else has already gone through. So to have peer support when times get tough—somebody I can call when I'm in crisis—is a good thing and helps keep people from reentering the system. We also have some mutual aid and emergency funds that people can tap into, that are easily accessible for when they first get out. [This aid] includes not only funds, but resources like housing and employment and even recovery services. And then we divide into a few groups—we have a section of our staff that is solely dedicated to advocating for incarcerated men, and then we have one for incarcerated women, and we have one that's just working with young people, so we're working across the board.

Julia: What are some of the biggest problems affecting the Maine Department of Corrections today, and what have

JosePH JaCkson

been some of the most significant recent successes of prisoner advocacy and reform in Maine?

Joseph: One of the campaigns we have is that we want to bring parole to Maine. Maine is one of the few states that doesn't have parole. The first obligation [of the DOC] is to restore and rehabilitate, but once [that occurs], they can't release anyone. We need parole, we need to recognize that people change—that's one of our campaigns. The other campaign is we're still fighting to eradicate solitary confinement in our state. The DOC says they don't have solitary confinement, but technically it's just been renamed different things like "protective custody" [and] "administrative control units." These are the kinds of practices where a person can be locked up 23–24 hours a day— that practice is barbaric and torturous, and it disproportionately impacts mentally ill folks and trans folks. So that's one of our huge campaigns; we want to see that end in our state.

A recent success is, we've been fighting for what we call compassionate release. Compassionate release is when a person is infirm or on the verge of dying, and can be released to nursing homes—or even home, where they can be cared for by family, someone that loves them. It was [previously] only defined for people that were on the verge of dying, and now we've expanded it to include illnesses where the person continues to progress toward incapacitation. We're moving incrementally, but we're moving in that area. Another big win for us, we were involved in the fight to keep pregnant women from being shackled—pregnant women are no longer shackled when they're being transferred to the hospital to give birth.

One third of our cases involve access to health care. Our prisons and jails have privatized health care, and people have a lot of problems engaging in that system. What we’ve done is facilitate conversations and direct dialogue with the health care provider and incarcerated residents, to really talk about the things that they need. And in youth justice, we've had a few wins. We've been part of the campaign to close Long Creek, which is the only youth facility in the state. In our first three years, we had Maine Youth Justice get a bill through the House and the Senate, only to be vetoed by the

governor. And now we have two bills that have gone through committee and are about to be voted on in a few weeks. One request asks that young people who find themselves arrested be assessed by [the Department of Health and Human Services] and that that assessment be used in whatever adjudication takes place for the juvenile. And then the second is to put $20 million into community resources—that also got through the House. We'll see how it gets through Appropriations, but those are some things we're working on right now.

Julia: What are some of the biggest challenges facing formerly incarcerated people after being released from prison, and what is being done or can be done to aid this transition?

Joseph: The biggest problem is trying to find your life again. People who enter the system lose almost everything, and so when you're coming out, you're pretty much starting over from scratch. Stable housing is essential—you also need to get working, and there needs to be some kind of support. For someone who comes out of prison today, if they were indigent, they would receive $50 at the gate. They would have to work two weeks before they get their first paycheck. The uphill climb is really steep. And so how are we supporting people? [The system is] punishing people, because now where they can work is limited, where they can live is limited. There's a box to check—whether you're going for employment or whether you're going for housing. Those things create barriers for folks. Having that felony checked on your record that's open to the public is a lifetime barrier for folks just being able to get back to self-sufficiency.

Julia: Regarding Maine Inside Out, specifically—how did you get involved, and what does your work with them look like now?

Joseph: When I was a prisoner, I helped start the college program at the facility with [the support of] Doris Buffett—now over 100 people have graduated from that college program. I got my BA, and then I'm the first prisoner to be accepted to a master's degree program while still a prisoner—my master's degree is in creative writing and poetry. When I first got out, I started doing a lot of networking. I developed a program for

youth to learn how to navigate the system to succeed. And Maine Inside Out was working with youth, so with my poetry and art component and their theater component, it just felt like a natural fit.

At the time, there was no minimum age for youth to be held in Long Creek, and they could be held until they're twenty-one. Then they're released, and within the first year, over 50% recidivate, and they haven't been socialized on how to live— never had a job, never had a car, never had a driver's license, or any of these things. This whole idea of peer support and mentorship—we started with open mics and we began to study where our young people went. So we formed community groups in Waterville, Portland, Lewiston, and Biddeford. We were creating plays and the plays that we created were a form of social activism as well as restoration and healing for the youth. And that activism really was about showing people what was going on behind these closed doors, what the kids were experiencing, what they were saying. We would take their stories and make scenes, and then we would weave those scenes into a play, and then we shared that play all over.

Julia: So from your perspective, how do poetry and theater and other art forms interact with the carceral system, and how do the arts impact the lives of people who were formerly incarcerated?

Joseph: We've moved into using Augusto Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed. We work in a middle school now, in Portland, with the same ages of people that would normally end up in Long Creek. Theater is restorative and healing, and it's empowering, because you get

to tell your story, people get to see your story and share it. And with our model of acting for non-acting, there's also a component where the audience is not just a witness, they're also part of it, right? You become part of what's being shown and then in your power, the audience's power, what can you do to impact what's being seen on stage? It's really based on a principle from Shakespeare, that anything you want to see in the world, you're gonna first see imagined and displayed in art. And it gives voice. Particularly when you're talking about system-impacted young people, their voices are rarely in decision-making spaces, their stories are rarely told—somebody tells their story for them, and they don't get to tell the story themselves. There's something empowering in [reclaiming] that.

Julia: What are the best ways for Mainers to get involved with decarceration, prison reform, and prisoner advocacy?

Joseph: Well, since I'm an Executive Director, I will say pull out your pocketbooks and donate to Maine Prisoner Advocacy Coalition and donate to Maine Inside Out. Donate to organizations that are working with this population—because these are community members, whatever mistake they've made and whatever accountability they've been held to should remain on the inside. Once they enter our communities, we should support them in any way we can because a healthy community demands it. If you can't reach in your pocketbook, volunteer, reach out to the organizations, find out if there's anything you can do as far as helping support the work.

maine inside out "loVe is alternatiVes to inCarCeration" PerformanCe, June 2018

Glossary

by Jessi Stier

Adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD): A genetic condition that damages the membrane (myelin sheath) that covers nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord. When this membrane is damaged, nerve signals from the brain cannot communicate across the body properly, causing impaired bodily functions or paralysis. ALD prevents the body from breaking down very long chain fatty acids, causing these fatty acid chains to build up in the brain, nervous system, and adrenal gland. It may be inherited from one or both parents. Symptoms of ALD often begin between the ages of 4 and 10, and include loss of vision, learning disabilities, difficulty swallowing, seizures, deafness, and muscle weakness.

Aggravated assault: An unlawful attack by one person upon another for the purpose of inflicting severe or aggravated bodily injury.

Colonel Sanders: An American businessman and founder of fast food restaurant chain Kentucky Fried Chicken. He later became the company's brand ambassador and symbol.

Cotija: An aged Mexican cheese made from cow's milk and named after the town of Cotija, Michoacán. White in color and firm in texture, its flavor is salty and milky. "Young" (or fresher) cotija cheese has been described as akin to a mild feta, while aged (añejo) cotija is more comparable in flavor to hard, aged cheeses like Parmesan.

El inframundo: Spanish for the underworld.

Genoa salami: A variety of dry, cured, unsmoked salami with a natural casing. It is normally made from coarsely ground pork, but may also contain a small amount of beef.

Halloumi: A cheese of Cypriot origin made from a mixture of goat's and sheep's milk, and sometimes also cow's milk. Its texture is described as “squeaky.” It has a high melting point, so it can easily be fried or grilled, a property that makes it a popular meat substitute.

Lucha libre: Meaning "freestyle wrestling" or literally translated as "free fight," a term for the style of professional wrestling originating in Mexico in the early 20th century. Since its origin, it has developed into a unique form of the genre, characterized by colorful masks, rapid sequences of holds, and maneuvers.

Pagoda on Mount Penn: A novelty building built atop the south end of Mount Penn overlooking Reading, PA. It has been a symbol of the city for more than a century. It was originally intended to be the hotel/restaurant centerpiece of a luxury resort. However, plans for the rest of the resort were abandoned, and instead the pagoda houses a small café and a gift shop, functioning as an icon for the city of Reading.

Pendejo: Spanish slang, meaning a stupid or contemptible person. Also considered to be a swear word, similar to “asshole” in English.

Patchouli: A species of flowering plant in the family Lamiaceae, commonly called the mint or deadnettle family. It has an earthy, woody, and musky scent.

Puttanesca sauce: An Italian sauce originating in Naples. It is made from canned tomatoes, garlic, anchovies, olives, and capers. It is commonly served over pasta.

Swiss chard: A green leafy vegetable in the beet family, with broad, white stalks.

tHe Pagoda on mount Penn in readng, Pa

Food on Stage

by Alex Oleksy

In Portland Stage’s production of Clyde’s, the sandwich is the thing. As the characters stack and trash sandwich after sandwich, they build and deconstruct their own creative sustenance. tThe truck stop employees try to move forward from their past, communing around the latest culinary experiment and keeping their eyes on the future. Food not only nourishes the bodies of these tired, hard-working individuals, but also their souls.

Historically, gathering around the dinner table has deeply intertwined itself with the theatricality of the stage. As far back as 500 BCE, Indian Sanskrit theater relied on the idea of rasa, or the physical quality of taste. The six types of rasa (sweet, salt, acid, bitter, astringent, and spicy) were utilized to develop a well-structured Sanskrit drama. Indian theater makers believed in the origin of emotion to be in the stomach, directly linking food and theatricality.

At the height of the Roman Empire, the rich and powerful transformed the dining room into a performance space to spotlight their wealth through extravagant decorations and luxurious items. Along with the personal showmanship, elite Romans ordered their cooks to sing, perform plays, or fight gladiator-style for the entertainment of guests. Culinary dramatics became a staple of the cultured population, stimulating both the brain and stomach.

Jumping several hundred years, the spirituality of culinary theater can be seen in the Middle Ages, as European Christians celebrated the twelve days of Christmas with madrigal dinners, serving courses of meals between performance acts. The pageantry of Christian celebration literally entwined with the “dramatic arc” of a multi-course meal, connecting religious merriment with artistic food presentation.

Now in the 21st century, Portland Stage explored this relationship with the world premiere production of Richard Blanco and Vanessa Garcia’s Sweet Goats and Blueberry

Señoritas in 2023. Following Cuban-American baker Beatriz, the play utilized the recipes of traditional Cuban sweets and Maine ingredients to investigate what it means to belong in unfamiliar places.

“Food is family, and family is community,” Sweet Goats director Sally Wood said. “You know, the idea that when somebody dies, we bring food. If there's a celebration, we bring food. It's late at night, I offer you a coffee and something sweet so that we can have this moment.”

After performances, audiences of Sweet Goats were greeted with free treats inspired by the play’s baked goods, as well as recipes for the traditional foods created on stage. “We were trying to hang onto those moments of talking to a stranger or laughing about something you just witnessed,” Wood said. “Can we hang onto the bubble of that moment for just a little bit longer?”

With the 2023–24 season, Portland Stage returns to the culinary world with Clyde’s. Embedded in Reading, Pennsylvania, Nottage’s

Jl rey (aea) and asHley alVarez (aea) in Portland stage's ProduCtion of sweet Goats and BlueBerry senoritas

play utilizes the pageantry of food in a working-class setting. “Everyone in the play is at a different place with regards to their experiences in the kitchen,” Clyde’s director Dominique Rider said. “The way Montrellous, who has been cooking for longer than anyone else, cuts food is going to be very different than someone who just started in the kitchen. And so the way that character is told is not only through language, but also through the way the actors are using utensils, and cutting, and deciding how to cut things.”

The connection to food is serious business for the characters of Clyde’s, as well as for the actors who play them. Lance E. Nichols, who returns to Portland Stage as Montrellous after last year’s performance in How I Learned What I Learned, has begun taking “sandwich-making classes” at Portland’s OhNo! Cafe to perfect his technique. “They allowed me to just ask as many questions as I wanted to ask, or video as much as I wanted,” Nichols said. “I am a stickler for details. Particularly if I'm watching a film or theater piece, there's nothing that irks me more than when I see an actor trying to execute some sort of skill set that his character has, and he or she is doing it poorly.”

As Montrellous, Nichols not only needed familiarity with sandwich-making, but with the complexity of a kitchen environment. “I was able to ask questions about kitchen lingo,” Nichols said. “They started telling me things, like ‘coming through,’ ‘behind,’ stuff like that. Because when you work in a small

kitchen area, everybody really has to kind of be cognizant of everybody else. And I want people to actually think: ‘Oh, was this guy, did he ever work in the kitchen?’”

The culinary world of Nottage’s play allows the entire team to get involved in the long history of drama and raw ingredients. “I think there's something really exciting about Lance getting to work with real food, getting to have a relationship to real food and getting to imbue those things with meaning,” Rider said.

The cast of Clyde’s use of food onstage has aided their friendship offstage. Nichols, who hails from New Orleans, is planning to cook a large seafood gumbo for his fellow actors and creative team members. “I love cooking, the love of cooking is just naturally in my blood,” he said. “I enjoy seeing people enjoy what I fixed. I think [for] most cooks, whether it be the chef at a restaurant, or just a mom-and-pop type restaurant, I think there's an enjoyment that people get in watching people being sated from a good meal.”

The journey for the perfect sandwich holds more than a simple satisfaction for Montrellous and his co-workers, though. In the face of an unforgiving carceral system and a lack of job opportunities, communing over their cooking allows Nottage’s characters to engage in an age-old tradition of emotional catharsis and physical nourishment. “When people have been incarcerated, and they've finally served their time and they come out of jail, it’s very hard for them to find employment,” Nichols said. “But if they've developed some sort of skill set while they were incarcerated, it becomes a little bit easier for them. I think that Montrellous’ love for food probably started in prison, and I think he loved it so much that when he was released, he said, ‘I can get a job working in the restaurant.’ But I think the food becomes a metaphor, not just for him, but for everybody who works in that restaurant, as their way out.”

lanCe e niCHols (aea) at tHe first read tHrougH of Clyde's

Cooking Up a Fresh Start

by Julia Jennings

In Lynn Nottage’s stirring portrait of a truck stop sandwich shop, we watch a group of formerly incarcerated workers find purpose— or, at the very least, employment—through cuisine. This is a familiar phenomenon in the United States, as people released from prison face increasingly stifling barriers to reentry, and work in the food service industry offers a source of meaningful income.

Currently, over 640,000 people are released from prison each year in the US. More than half of them are unable to find stable employment in their first year after release, and three in four are rearrested within three years. This is often due to system-enforced barriers to formerly incarcerated people, such as having to indicate their criminal record on job and housing applications. This often exacerbates problems after release, as people with a criminal record are often blocked from finding employment in the fields they were trained to work in while in prison. The food industry, in certain cases, serves as a rare exception. In the face of these startling recidivism rates, a number of formerly incarcerated people across the country have embarked on initiatives to help others recently released from prison kickstart careers in the restaurant industry.

Michael Carter, executive chef at Down North Pizza in Philadelphia and self-described “culinary activist,” points out that many people underestimate how hard returning citizens are willing to work when offered a livable wage. “There should be entrepreneurs lined up outside of halfway houses trying to find employees,” he said in an interview with The Guardian. Carter began working at Down North in 2020, after being released from prison. While Carter was incarcerated, he worked in the facility kitchen, and ended up cooking experimental meals for himself and the other inmates out of scraps. His famous “jailhouse pizza,” now served at Down North, is the result of years of experimenting with the limitations of prison food ingredients.

Down North exclusively hires people who have been formerly incarcerated. Their mission is to educate people on recidivism, the tendency of formerly incarcerated people to be pulled back into incarceration under our inequitable justice system. Carter has pointed out how Down North has given him a voice, allowing him to speak with the public about the carceral system, and what it was like to live inside the system. Down North also actively works to undo the system’s harms, providing employees with housing and offering on-the-job training. “What I’m trying to do at Down North Pizza is create a place for our guys to be free, to be who they are,” Carter said. “To have a good ol’ time. Sometimes we dance on the line.”

In Brooklyn, New York, chef Sharon Richardson founded a catering company with a similar mission. Her company, Just Soul Catering (born from her nonprofit Reentry Rocks), hires only formerly incarcerated women, offering employment as well as traumainformed support. Richardson also offers an entrepreneurial fellowship program, in which women can earn their food handler certificate and learn financial literacy and business skills. When asked why she decided to center her training program around food, Richardson points back to an experience in prison in which her fellow inmates gathered to cook a meal to comfort her after her mother died. She said, “If I’m going to start a business, it’s got to be about food. It’s got to be about people. It’s got to be about love.”

Edwin’s, a fine dining French restaurant in Cleveland, Ohio, also offers a robust training program at their Leadership and Training Institute designed to prepare formerly incarcerated people for careers in the restaurant industry. Edwin’s was founded in 2013 by Brandon Chrostowski, who was first inspired to seek out restaurant work after being given probation in 1997 for drug-related offenses. His training institute now offers classes in thirteen Ohio prisons and has made

their cooking curriculum available on 15,000 educational tablets used in prisons in Arizona. While Edwin’s does not guarantee employment, 95% of graduates from their training program go on to work in the food industry.

Here in Maine, the Department of Corrections entered a pilot program in 2023 with Impact Justice’s Food in Prison program and Brigaid, a Connecticut-based company which sends chefs to work as advisors and improve institutional food settings like schools and hospitals. This particular initiative has been entirely funded by private grants and individual donations, and seeks to improve the overall quality of food in Maine prisons. Special emphasis is also being placed on training kitchen staff within prisons, geared towards preparing incarcerated workers for potential employment after prison.

Even before this initiative, Maine’s corrections system has offered culinary training and line cook apprenticeships, along with ServSafe and food preservation certifications. As of 2023,

the Maine Department of Corrections reported 127 inmates working in facility kitchens, and another 55 enrolled in these food certification programs. However, Brigaid is also hoping to develop and implement a new certification process that will be accepted nationwide, and prepare participants to work not just in other institutional kitchens, but also in the restaurant industry. As this program continues to develop, Maine is hoping their initiative will become a model for prisons across the country. While these groundbreaking organizations and partnerships offer tangible, life-altering support and services, it's important to remember that the United States carceral system often exploits prison labor, with most jobs for prisoners paying only $0.12–$0.40/ hour; it also supplies inmates with less than humane resources upon reentry, setting them up to fail upon release. However, by persisting in the face of a corrupt system, food work and the art of cuisine may offer the possibility of a nourishing future and stable career for formerly incarcerated people.

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Lynn Nottage and Reading, PA

by Jessi Stier

In October 2011, Lynn Nottage was returning from a production of her Pulitzer Prize–winning play Ruined, which was being performed in Africa. While traveling, she received an email from a close friend who admitted to having been out of funds for the previous six months. “I read it and it completely broke my heart; it devastated me,” Nottage said. “This was during the time when there was this tremendous economic downturn. It also happened to be the same week that Occupy Wall Street was just beginning.” Nottage replied to the email, offered her apologies, and suggested she and her friend attend the Occupy Wall Street protests. This event catalyzed Nottage to take further action through art. In December 2011, she strove to find a city within driving distance of NYC that she felt was a microcosm of what was happening in America. She then discovered a New York Times article about Reading, Pennsylvania, which they designated as the poorest city in America, with a poverty rate of over 40%. Nottage was in disbelief

that one of America’s poorest cities was in the Northeast, as the impoverished Rust Belt is commonly designated to the South. The Rust Belt refers to the impact of deindustrialization, economic decline, population loss, and urban decay on regions due to the shrinking industrial sector of steelmaking, automobile manufacturing, and coal mining.

“But poverty is so close to us,” Nottage added. “In fact, six of the poorest cities in America were in the Northeast: in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. I thought: We have a warped perception of what poverty is.” In January 2012, she began traveling to Reading with a small team to learn more about the demographics of the city, and to interview people from all walks of life: legislators, social services workers, members of the police force, people they ran into on the street—anyone willing to share their stories. She found herself drawn to a group of friends who’d been laid off, and was compelled by how being laid off affected their lives over the course of two generations. Nottage's plays Sweat and Clyde’s were born from this research, as was This is Reading, a site-specific, multimedia performance installation, developed from two years of interviews, which re-animated the long-abandoned Reading Railroad Station with the depictions of the hardships and victories of Reading residents.

Lynn Nottage won her second Pulitzer Prize in 2017 for Sweat. The Broadway production of Sweat received three 2017 Tony Award nominations: Best Play and Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play for both Johanna Day and Michelle Wilson. Shortly before the play completed its run on Broadway, Nottage announced that she was writing a companion piece, as she had more to explore thematically with Reading’s community. This piece became Clyde’s. Here are the plot connections between the two.

Sweat takes place between 2000 and 2008, jumping back and forth in time. The primary

lynn nottage at oCCuPy wall street in 2011.

action occurs at a bar in Reading, PA, where individuals from the local steel mill drink, gossip, and dream of lives outside of the Rust Belt. One of these individuals is Jason, a millworker in his early 20s. He dreams of buying a motorcycle, leaving the industry, and starting his own business with his best friend, Chris. Chris, however, has been accepted into an academic program, disrupting Jason’s plan. In 2000, rumors spread that the mill will begin laying off workers, and Jason learns that the mill is demanding employees to take a 60% pay cut. He and Chris picket in front of the factory and get into a physical fight with a local Latine man who has crossed the picket line to take a temp job at the mill. Later that night, at the bar, Jason, enraged, attacks the same man with a baseball bat.

In 2008, Jason and Chris have both been released from prison and are now on parole. Jason is incredibly apathetic; he has acquired white supremacist tattoos from his time in prison and uses racial slurs against his parole officer. This is where Clyde’s picks up with Jason’s character. Also taking place in 2008, Clyde’s centers around the kitchen of a highway-side sandwich shop in Berks County (the same county that Sweat is set in). We find that Jason’s journey has led him to seek work at

the sandwich shop, forcing him to confront his feelings about his past as he engages with his new coworkers, who are also all former felons.

In comparing the two works, Nottage has stated, “[Clyde’s is] very much in conversation with Sweat, but it’s an entirely different work, and you don’t need to have familiarity with Sweat to be able to enjoy Clyde’s. It’s set in a sandwich shop on a not-so-traveled stretch of road just outside of Reading. And I describe it as a liminal space. It’s a space that you only find if you’re taking a detour.”

While Sweat ends with a violent confrontation shaking this community, Clyde’s depicts a group of formerly incarcerated people in the same area finding hope. Nottage’s intentions to showcase different narratives of life in the Rust Belt are very clear. “I wanted to write about the deindustrialization happening there,” Nottage has said of the two shows, “but I also wanted to write something fun, accessible, and irreverent.” Together, Sweat and Clyde’s allow Nottage to shine a light on previously unexamined corners of the country, encouraging audiences to broaden their knowledge about the impact of poverty and incarceration in the United States.

a Bird's eye View of downtown reading, PennsylVania

An Intro to Prison Abolition

by Alex Oleksy

The specter of the American prison system always hangs over the small sandwich shop staffed by the formerly incarcerated in Lynn Nottage’s Clyde’s. With nearly 2 million individuals imprisoned at any given time, the United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world. Over $182 billion is spent every year to contain nearly 1% of the American adult population, with an over-representation of Black, Native, and Latino individuals. As the employees at Clyde’s work to survive, their dreams of something more are constrained by this carceral system. Like the shop itself, their five lives exist within a liminal space, free from prison but never truly liberated of the past. When a criminal sentence extends beyond the cell, how can the people of Clyde’s meet their full potential?

For some activists and scholars, the answer doesn’t come from reform of the justice system, but from a more radical decarceration, also known as prison abolition. While anarchist Emma Goldman was one of the first critics of modern confinement, descrbing them as “hell on earth” more than 100 years ago, the prison abolition movement truly began to organize in the 1960s with leaders such as Angela Y. Davis. Abolitionist thinkers like Davis argue that, within our current system, prisons are seen as a necessary evil, and that institutions focus on reformation rather than the ethics of different forms of punishment. While there is not a centralized organization advocating for decarceration, groups such as the Movement for Black Lives, Critical Resistance, and the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee collaborate inside and outside of the prison system to limit carceral and mass-policing efforts in the United States.

According to Harvard scholar Dorothy Roberts, the modern prison abolition system is founded on three main ideas. First, "today’s carceral punishment system can be traced back to slavery and the racial capitalist regime it relied on and sustained." In her book Are Prisons

Obsolete?, Davis connects the abolition of slavery to the increase of penitentiaries in the United States in the late 19th century. As Black Americans were freed after the Civil War, the 13th Amendment allowed for a loophole in which slavery and involuntary servitude remained legal as judicial punishment. Faced with a new lack of free labor, white politicians instituted Black Codes, which were laws that only Black individuals could be “duly convicted” of violating. The newly free Black population was therefore brought back under the constraints of servitude through incarceration, where their labor could be “leased” to Southern capitalists. This practice continued through the 20th and 21st centuries, where the “war on crime” and “war on drugs” overtook the Black Codes, enlarging the population of incarcerated people of color and forming what is called the “prison-industrial complex.”

This leads us to the second thesis of prison abolition, where Roberts states that “the expanding criminal punishment system functions to oppress Black people and other politically marginalized groups in order to

Prison aBolitionist angela y. daVis giVing a leCture in 2014.

maintain a racial capitalist regime." From 1970 to 2020, the United States prison system experienced a 601% population increase. Mass incarceration became the political norm under the Reagan administration (1981–89), and the web of the prison-industrial complex became all the more intertwined. The capitalist model of profit-over-people has embedded hundreds of American food brands like General Mills, Tyson Foods, and Coca-Cola in the system. Prison laborers are used to produce goods, but they may be threatened with the loss of parole, solitary confinement, or other punishments to force productivity. The Associated Press tracked over $200 million worth of produce and livestock sales from American penitentiaries in the last six years, and this is only a fraction of the market supported by incarcerated labor. Prison abolitionists argue that this exploitation, along with the long-term mental, physical, and social effects of imprisonment, make the prison-industrial complex a net-negative for American society.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Roberts asserts that the prison abolition movement believes that "we can imagine and build a more humane and democratic society that no longer relies on caging people to meet human needs and solve social problems." Critics of abolition argue against its seemingly destructive tendencies: Where will we put criminals? Who will be our police? How will we exact justice? What these critiques misunderstand is that abolition, while radical in the long haul, does not aim to leave an emptiness in its wake on the path towards the ideal. The abolition movement is a diverse pool of thought, but largely focuses on two areas of progressive decarceration.

The first concept is placing public safety in the hands of communities, largely by employing local social workers and mental health professionals in instances of nonviolent crimes. In New York City, a nonprofit network partially funded by the city’s budget has begun this work, aiding in a significant decrease in reported crime and arrests. The act of “civilianizing safety” also aids in the reintroduction of the formerly incarcerated to the general population by maintaining community cohesion and reversing the decimation that our judicial system has

inflicted upon communities of color and lowincome communities throughout US history.

The second area of decarceration, and perhaps the more controversial, focuses on financial divestment from the prison-industrial complex, often described as “defunding the police.” In divesting from the carceral system, activists argue that the state can reinvest in social infrastructure such as universal healthcare, unemployment aid, and services for those who struggle with drug and alcohol abuse. In focusing on issues of poverty and illness, prison abolitionists believe that the root causes of a majority of crime can eventually make the carceral system obsolete.

The prison-industrial complex restricts the characters of Clyde’s to the periphery of modern American society, and Montrellous gives a concise reminder when he tells his team “cuz you left prison don’t mean you outta prison.” If American incarceration fails to rehabilitate, Nottage’s writing pushes us to question: is the system worth saving, or must we throw it away and start over, like a sandwich that has just gone rotten.

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Whiteness and Food Gentrification

by Julia Jennings

One of the most striking elements of Clyde’s by Lynn Nottage is the perpetual search for the perfect sandwich, and the artistic reverence with which the characters treat this search. What does it mean to place this high regard on such a commonplace meal? Montrellous notably refers to the sandwich as “the most democratic of all foods.” As the play progresses, we see the disparity between the high-level cuisine that these chefs are capable of and the lackluster orders that most customers place with them. The tension between these conflicting elements begs the question: who gets to decide what food is considered cuisine? How do we determine what food gets to be considered art versus what is simply regarded as sustenance?

Lobster is a prime example. At first, the crustacean was considered a poor man’s food because they were so plentiful along the New England shore, and served as effective and cheap sustenance. Lobsters were considered sea bugs—Indigenous people used them to bait fish hooks and fertilize crops. Indigenous tribes also started the practice of cooking lobsters over hot rocks, thereby establishing

the tradition of the lobster bake. However, in the 1880s, the wealthy in Boston and New York City took a shine to lobster, and the price skyrocketed. Soon it was only considered a delicacy, and the price was raised to reflect its reputation. People who had previously relied on the overabundance of lobsters to fuel their diets could no longer afford it.

This happens frequently in the food world; there is an extensive history of food being turned into a status symbol, controlled by dominant social structures that determine what is or is not considered of value. Wealth and whiteness are key components of these social structures. BIPOC and non-Western cultures often drive culinary discourse and innovation, but are rarely credited. Indigenous people are rarely recognized for having invented the lobster bake, nor are enslaved Americans of the 1800s often cited for having established the tradition of cooking the tender collard greens that are so lauded by celebrity chefs today. So much of food culture is born out of necessity, and later gentrified by a white, wealthy mass media.

a loBster Being Baked at tHurston's loBster Pound in Bernard, maine

Food gentrification is a term first coined by cultural critic Mikki Kendall, who, in 2014, tweeted “When we talk about #foodgentrification we’re talking about the impact of a traditionally low-income food becoming trendy.” Food gentrification often risks driving up food prices to the extent of excluding the people who originated those foods. The term also points to the manner in which the white middle class controls cultural norms by imposing privileged understandings of food access and “healthy eating,” often to the detriment of minority groups and lowerincome people.

Another symptom of food gentrification is culinary appropriation, when food specific to one culture is made and sold inauthentically by people outside its culture of origin. This movement tends to reinforce stereotypes and contribute to oppression. For example, many white-owned Chinese American restaurants have changed their menus to appeal to the American palate. As a result, the United States has only been exposed to a limited scope of Chinese food, generally erasing the nuanced, regionally-specific diversity of cuisine originating in China.

In fact, many white Americans have developed a concept of Chinese food as “cheap” and ubiquitous, as it falls lower on the “hierarchy of taste.” Chef Jing Gao explains this: “The value we place on a cuisine is informed by our perception of the socio-economic status of emigrants from those countries.” And indeed, Chinese restaurants in America proliferated in the late 1800s, as the Chinese Exclusion Act was enacted in the United States, with the loophole that merchants were still able to enter the US to operate restaurants. To attract customers and remain in business, prices were kept low. So although our modern conception of Chinese cuisine was born out of resilience to racist American policy, these low prices have led to a cheapening of the United States' understanding of Chinese food, and thus its exclusion from “mainstream” cuisine.

As examined by journalist Hannah Giorgis, such culinary whitewashing is no accident. The culinary gatekeepers defining public opinion are majority white, and so even when BIPOC

chefs or food writers try to alter the narrative, it is still being understood and disseminated through a white lens. Food writer Navneet Alang explains this phenomenon: “The mainstream is white, so what is presented in the mainstream becomes defined as white, and—ta-da—what you see in viral YouTube videos somehow ends up reinforcing a white norm, even though the historical roots of a dish or an ingredient might be the Levant or East Asia.”

Giorgis calls for a more conscious food media, focused around how economic necessities and social structures drive the industry rather than simply discussing cuisine without context. Since the major food media voices are overtaken by whiteness, Giorgis suggests that challenging this dominant framework must come from outside those institutions. Many publications are doing this already, such as For the Culture, a magazine celebrating Black women in food and wine, and books such as Michael W. Twitty’s The Cooking Gene: A Journey Through African American Culinary History in the Old South, which reendows dishes with their own rich history and social circumstances. This contextualization allows a reclaiming of the cultural significance and cultural capital inherent in food.

So who’s to say a sandwich is not a delicacy? In our current culture, the answer would unfortunately be the white mainstream media. However, Clyde’s encourages us to reimagine the value placed on food. Rather than reducing the sandwich to a mundane lunch food, Montrellous suggests we instead recognize the sandwich as “the culmination of a long hard journey that began with a wheat seed cultivated by a farmer thousands of years ago.” When the sandwich is reframed as something that can be perfect, something that can express love and history, it becomes its own manifestation of art, its own understanding of cuisine.

Bringing Incarceration to the Stage, and the Stage to the Incarcerated

by Alex Oleksy

In her most recent play, Clyde’s, Lynn Nottage brings the realities of the formerly incarcerated front and center, providing audiences with a glimpse into the lives of the 4.9 million Americans who have previously been held in a state or federal prison. The realities of incarceration are not new for the acclaimed playwright, whose Pulitzer Prize–winning Sweat investigated the intersections of class, race, and the justice system in a dive bar in Reading, Pennsylvania, during the Great Recession.

In a 2023 interview, Nottage described her desire to write a play that “made the formerly incarcerated visible, and to give them three dimensions.” By spotlighting a population literally pushed out of sight of the general American populace, Nottage continues the long-standing tradition of dramatizing the struggles inside and outside the walls of the carceral system.

While the themes of crime and justice have existed in theater since its birth, Western drama began to focus on the plight of the incarcerated in the early 20th century, as the abolition of slavery in the United States catalyzed the modern penal system. Before his success with The Glass Menagerie and A Streetcar Named Desire, playwright Tennessee Williams wrote Not About Nightingales in 1938, inspired by a real prisoners' strike that occurred the same year. Nightingales follows a group of prisoners going on a hunger strike after the death of a fellow inmate. The piece was one of the earliest depictions of modern incarcerated life in the American theater. Despite Williams’ later success, the play went unproduced and unpublished until 1998.

At the beginning of the 21st century, playwrights Jessica Blank and Erik Jensen took real-life influence further with their piece, The Exonerated. Utilizing interview transcripts, letters, and court documents, the piece tells the true stories of six wrongfully convicted individuals on death row. The play’s multiple perspectives and first-person narratives

sought to spark questions about the ethical implications of the carceral system and statesponsored execution. It ran Off-Broadway for over 600 performances.

With the rise of prison reform in the 20th and 21st centuries, artists have also utilized narratives around incarceration to reach the people they dramatize. Seeking a new pathway towards rehabilitation, California’s San Quentin State Prison welcomed the firstever documented theatrical performance for the incarcerated into its walls in 1911. The play, titled Alias Jimmy Valentine, told the story of a former convict who struggles but eventually succeeds in making a happy life for himself and his family after his release from prison. Performed for 2,000 inmates, this performance marked the beginning of theater as a tool for hope in the American carceral system, and also represented a change in public perception of punishment and rehabilitation.

More than a century later in early 2022, a Broadway performance of Clyde’s was livestreamed to inmates at Rikers Island, the first stream of its kind in New York’s history. After the performance, cast members, Nottage, and director Kate Whoriskey were able to talk with the incarcerated audience members about the play’s themes and its relationship to their own lives. “We are thrilled that we can invite new audiences to experience theater,” Whoriskey told NYC’s Department of Corrections. “The conversation we had with people at Rikers directly informed the acting choices [at] the following performance.”

Performing arts programs that work with incarcerated and formerly incarcerated populations not only bring the outside world inside the walls of American prisons, but also bring the voices and stories of these marginalized lives to communities across the country. One such institution, the Denver University Prison Arts Initiative (DUPAI), connects students and academics from Denver

University with incarcerated populations across the state of Colorado. While previous productions performed in correctional facilities include One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and A Christmas Carol, DUPAI’s recent work, IF LIGHT CLOSED ITS EYES, utilized documentarydrama methods similar to The Exonerated to tell the stories of the formerly and currently incarcerated, their families, and the staff of Colorado’s prison system. The piece, which consisted of 100 verbatim interview transcripts, was performed by members of the Sterling Correctional Facility, placing narrative autonomy back in the hands of the work’s subjects.

Closer to home, Maine Inside Out (MIO) devises theatrical performances with young people in schools, community centers, and juvenile detention centers across the state in an effort to end youth incarceration. Operating since 2008, MIO has utilized new play development to spark dialogue in cities like Portland and Lewiston about the harms of mass incarceration. They are currently developing a piece with inmates at Mountain View Correctional Facility in Charleston that will receive a public performance on June 7.

Programs like DUPAI and MIO can create lasting impact on the lives of inmates, the formerly incarcerated, and their communities.

Some have even reached levels of success that allow them to change the systems they work within. After spending 400 days as a political prisoner in Iran, playwright Sarah Shourd partnered with formerly incarcerated Americans to develop The Box, an immersive play revealing the horrors of solitary confinement, a punishment inflicted on approximately 80,000 inmates every day. Shroud’s play, which has been staged in various forms by formerly incarcerated actors for nearly a decade, was cited by former California Senator Mark Leno as a contributing factor to the ending of solitary confinement in the state’s juvenile detention facilities. The company of The Box completed an “End of Isolation” tour in 2022 in hopes of eliminating this practice in prisons across the country.

In staging the stories of Clyde’s and encouraging performances for incarcerated populations, Lynn Nottage’s work highlights the ability of theater to open new possibilities of freedom for Americans in and out of our carceral system. On stage and in the audience, we can start challenging conversations about how the system meant to keep us safe may be doing more harm than good.

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Recommended Resources

by Editors

Watch:

13th directed by Ava DuVernay

Black Panthers by Agnès Varda

Dixon and Daughters by Deborah Bruce

Read:

Are Prisons Obsolete? by Angela Y. Davis

Freedom is a Constant Struggle by Angela Y. Davis

Sweat by Lynn Nottage

The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander

We Do This 'Til We Free Us by Mariame Kaba

Get Involved:

Maine Prisoner Advocacy Coalition - https://www.maineprisoneradvocacy.org/ Maine Inside Out - https://www.maineinsideout.org/

MaineWorks - https://www.maineworks.us/

Place Matters Maine - https://placemattersmaine.org/

Maine Prisoner Re-Entry Network - https://re-entrymaine.org/

roland ruiz (aea), latrisHa talley (aea), and Breezy leigH (aea) at tHe Clyde's taBle read

Portland Stage Company Education Programs

Student Matinee Series

The Portland Stage Student Matinee Program provides students with discounted tickets for student matinees. Following the performance, students participate in a conversation with the cast and crew, which helps them gain awareness of the creative process and encourages them to think critically about the themes and messages of the play.

Play Me a Story

Experience the fun and magic of theater on Saturday mornings with Play Me a Story! Ages 4 – 10 enjoy a performance of children’s stories followed by an interactive acting workshop with Portland Stage’s Education Artists for $15. Sign up for the month and save or pick individual days that work for you. Build literacy, encourage creativity and spark dramatic dreams!

Shakespeare Teen Company

In April and May of 2024, students will come together as an ensemble to create a fully-staged production of Shakespeare‘s Hamlet in Portland Stage’s studio theater. Participants in grades 7-12 take on a variety of roles including acting, costume design, marketing, and more!

Vacation and Summer Camps

Dive into theater for five exciting days while on your school breaks! Our theater camps immerse participants in all aspects of theater, culminating in an open studio performance for friends and family at the end of the week! Camps are taught by professional actors, directors, and artisans. Students are invited to think imaginatively, critically, and creatively in an environment of inclusivity and safe play.

PLAY Program

An interactive dramatic reading and acting workshop tour for elementary school students in grades pre-k through 5. Professional education artists perform children’s literature and poetry and then involve students directly in classroom workshops based on the stories. Artists actively engage students in in small group workshop using their bodies, voices, and imaginations to build understanding of the text while bringing the stories and characters to life. PLAY helps develop literacy and reading fluency, character recall, understanding of themes, social emotional skills, physical storytelling, and vocal characterization. The program also comes with a comprehensive Resource Guide filled with information and activities based on the books and poems.

Directors Lab

Professional actors perform a 50-minute adaptation of a Shakespeare play, followed by a talkback. In 2024 we will be touring Much Ado About Nothing to middle and high schools. After the performance, students engage directly with the text in an interactive workshop with the actors and creative team. In these workshops, students practice effective communication, creative collaboration, rhetoric, and critical analysis. The program also comes with a comprehensive Resource Guide filled with information and resources about the play we are focusing on. Directors Lab puts Shakespeare’s language into the hands and mouths of the students, empowering them to be the artists, directors, and ensemble with the power to interpret the text and produce meaning.

Portland Stage Company

Anita Stewart Artistic Director

Martin Lodish Managing Director

Artistic & Production Staff

Todd Brian Backus Literary Manager

Jacob Coombs Associate Technical Director

Ted Gallant Technical Director

Myles C. Hatch Stage Manager

Meg Lydon Stage Manager

Mary Lana Rice Production Manager & Lighting Supervisor

Seth Asa Sengel Asst. Production Manager & Sound Supervisor

Emily St. John Props Master

Susan Thomas Costume Shop Manager

Administrative Staff

Paul Ainsworth Business Manager

Isabel Bates Education Assistant

Beka Bryer Front of House Associate

Covey Crolius Development Director

Chris DeFilipp House Manager

Erin Elizabeth Marketing Director

Allison Fry Executive Assistant

James A. Hadley Assistant Marketing Director

Lindsey Higgins Development Associate

Jennifer London Company Manager

Renee Myhaver Assistant Box Office Manager

Donald Smith Audience Services Manager

Julianne Shea Education Administrator

Madeleine St. Germain Front of House Associate

Michael Dix Thomas Education Director

Adam Thibodeau House Manager

Apprentice Company

Katie Barnes Stage Management Apprentice

Ellis Collier Education Apprentice

Lucie Green Company Management Apprentice

Julia Jennings Directing & Dramaturgy Apprentice

Ellery Kenyon Education Apprentice

Isee Martine Scenic Design Apprentice

Claire Lowe Electrics Apprentice

Alex Oleksy Directing & Dramaturgy Apprentice

Elizabeth Sarsfield Stage Management Apprentice

Jessi Stier Directing & Dramaturgy Apprentice

Crow Traphagen Costumes Apprentice

Elena Truman Costumes Apprentice