“We are all Human, we are all Artists, we are all Actors”
Augusto Boal, Games for Actors and Non-Actors
We all have a story to tell…
some of us just get louder microphones.
Beginning in January of 2024 I set out to create an original devised production with twenty men currently incarcerated at Folsom Men’s Correctional Facility in Folsom, California.
With my undergraduate student co-facilitator, we aim to create socially-relevant, thought-provoking, humane, and humanizing theatre with and for the men inside.
To read about this project, click the image left.
Rising Actor’s Theatre Troupe’s Unfinished Business tells the story of a group of incarcerated men at a theatre workshop at Folsom Men’s Prison. One afternoon Freebird tells his buddy, Mike, that even though he had another twenty years on his sentence that he’s getting out! He offers his old things to his friends and warns them to “take good care of the hot pot.”
Back in his cell, Mike and his celly, Jeff try to rewire the hot pot to bring it to their theatre workshop. But they don’t want to blow the power to the cell block when they plug it in, so they decide to bring it with them and see if it works when they get there.
As soon as it’s plugged in, The Genie appears! Calling himself: The Genie of the Hot Pot, he tells the men that he can take each of them back to one moment in their lives where they can make a change BUT that if the tell anyone about him… there will be consequences.
One by one the men test out the Genie’s powers to learn that the choices we make can change our lives, and that maintaining the cone of silence might be the most powerful and “freeing” choice of all.
Premiered on June 11th 2024 in the Chapel at Folsom
Cover art by Mario M.
