End of Isolation Tour
The End of Isolation Tour brings immersive, transformative theater to communities across the country on the front lines of imagining a world without prisons and the torture of solitary confinement.
Loneliness. Sensory Deprivation. Torture. Words on a page that are now being brought to life for live audiences to witness, by people who have lived through it. The End of Isolation Tour is a theatrical production touring the United States, using immersive theater to make an impact.
As a means to reach audiences to enact political change (legislative art) and to engage people to promote healing through drama and artistic ritual (therapeutic theater), the END OF ISOLATION Tour centers around the play, The BOX, which underscores both the horror of solitary confinement and the humanity of people subjected to it, employing stories inspired by true events to bring awareness to the state-sponsored atrocities occurring in correctional institutions across the country.
The BOX is written and directed by Sarah Shourd, who was held in solitary confinement for over 400 days as a political prisoner in Iran. After discovering the prevalence of solitary confinement in the United States, she collaborated with other survivors and together, they have brought this project to life.
Our tour bus hits the road in July, and we will visit nine cities in two months. Check the map below to find the closest venue to you and buy tickets!
Last year, we raised over $300k for The End of Isolation Tour. Because of the pandemic, we only made it to one stop: San Raphael, California where we sold out all nine socially-distanced performances.
This allowed us to test-drive our socially-distanced, scalable, and immersive justice theater. In 2022, we’re taking it on the road, in an effort to create even more healing and impact.
We still need your help. Please help us raise the remaining $150k so we can hit the road in July 2022!
There are so many ways to be a part of the End of Isolation Tour and movement!
Help us make an impact by signing up for our newsletter and sharing the word about the End of Isolation Tour.
We need your help to get on the road. We’ve already raised $300k and only need to raise $150k more. Any amount helps!
Show your support and solidarity with ending isolation and beginning transformation. Rock our sweet EIT shirt.
“It was so real. This was the closest I’ve ever come to being able to understand what prison is like.”- Bobby Moore, audience member
“I really loved that I could tell that the artists who’d been in prison and solitary confinement had written this play. It was in the details that reminded me of both the struggles and community in prison.”
-Emile Deweaver, Audience Member and Formerly Incarcerated Co-founder of Prison Renaissance
”The BOX was very powerful. It brought up some hard realizations around all the hurt we’ve created with our prison system, and the amount of work required to repair all the broken lives.” -Stacy Crinks, The Battery
“This tender, funny and sharp play about humans that live in conditions of solitary confinement within the prison industrial complex is so necessary in our world,” Jihan McDonald
Transformative Theater is a broad term, generally applied to the use of plays and other theatrical experiences to address social justice challenges, using storytelling to bring awareness to or connection over a shared real world concern.
For us, transformative theater is rooted in healing and action. We use an immersive theater experience as a springboard to create impact. Each production ends with a survivor-led healing circle, using the experience of the show as a way to focus on collective healing and restorative justice. Transformative theater reaches out beyond the show itself. – –
Our tour emphasizes community outreach and engagement. In addition to performing our show, The BOX, we:
Ultimately, The End of Isolation Tour will create space for us all to envision a transformed correctional system- -one rooted in healing the wounds caused by the racially-biased, over-criminalized use of mass incarceration and solitary confinement in the United States.
The BOX has already changed lives and legislation. Performed at conferences, well-known theaters and in the former penitentiary on Alcatraz Island, the show has not only reached thousands of people, but also served as a powerful organizing tool for activists and politicians in California. Former California Senator Mark Leno affirmed that the the 2016 performances contributed to the passing of his bill ending the use of solitary in juvenile facilities throughout California.
This tour isn’t just about ending isolation. It’s about beginning transformation.
The BOX goes beyond traditional theater to impact communities and policy. The BOX and the tour amplifies local programs for collective healing and restorative justice. Each performance and each stop on the tour knits together advocacy groups, anti-solitary campaigns, legislators, educators, and people impacted by solitary and mass incarceration in healing circles, educational outreach and policy discussions to bring about a more just future.
As Jon Comstock from DeCarcerate Arkansas says “This tour will act like a booster-shot that will infuse the community with energy for action and help us to the finish line.”
To learn more about solitary confinement and it’s alternatives, visit Unlock The Box and Solitary Watch.
Yes! We’re pulling back the curtain on our experience, creating an exclusive behind-the-scenes documentary series about the tour.
Documentarian Bobby Field is traveling with the cast and crew, gaining intimate insight into what it takes to create transformative theater.
First and foremost, we are humans. Many of us are humans who have experienced incarceration and the horrors of solitary confinement first-hand.
Together, we’re a team of organizers committed to creating an impact through transformative theater- -and transformative justice. On the tour, we will travel, eat, work, and live together in a converted school bus for two months as we bring The BOX to communities across the US. This makes us more than a team. We are friends. We are a chosen family. Together, we are strengthening a movement.
Individually we are professionals: award-winning authors, interdisciplinary artists, activists, actors, educators, chefs, and storytellers.
Get to know us! Check out our bios and explore our personal websites.
As a part of our tour, the team visits universities, community organizations, and advocacy groups with a curriculum designed to educate and empower changemakers around solitary
We create a unique, strength-based opportunity to connect communities, bringing together those who have been impacted by a brutal and outdated system to community and survivor-led support systems.
We bring policy makers to the table and sometimes bring the show to the policy makers, whether it’s rehearsals in front of the White House or panel discussions around specific legislation
Each performance ends with a survivor-led healing circle, using the experience of the show and artistic ritual to focus on collective healing and restorative justice.
As a part of our tour, the team visits universities, community organizations, and advocacy groups with a curriculum designed to educate and empower changemakers around solitary
We create a unique, strength-based opportunity to connect communities, bringing together those who have been impacted by a brutal and outdated system to community and survivor-led support systems.
We bring policy makers to the table and sometimes bring the show to the policy makers, whether it’s rehearsals in front of the White House or panel discussions around specific legislation
Each performance ends with a survivor-led healing circle, using the experience of the show and artistic ritual to focus on collective healing and restorative justice.
We’re honored and excited to partner with anti-solitary advocacy organizations across the United States. Together, we’re creating a borderless community committed to:
In memory of Kalief Browder, Evan Ebel, Dannie Martin, Brian Nelson, Herman Wallace and all the others we’ve lost to the horror of solitary confinement.
With gratitude toward the people who shared their stories with us from solitary confinement, hugely contributing to this project:
And the survivors on the outside, who will never forget those they had to leave behind:
And family members:
Dates:
Friday July 22, 2022
Saturday July 23, 2022
Sunday July 24, 2022
Venue Partner:
Arkansas Air and Military Museum
4290 S. School Ave, Fayetteville, AR 72701
Community Partner:
decARcerate Arkansas
Arkansas Justice Reform Coalition
Dates:
Wednesday July 27, 2022
Thursday July 28, 2022
Friday July 29, 2022
Venue Partner:
The Big Top
3401 Washington Ave.
St. Louis, MO 63103
Community Partner:
Arch City Defenders
Dates:
Friday July 15, 2022
Saturday July 16, 2022
Sunday July 17, 2022
Venue Partner:
Holy Cross Catholic Church
1610 East 11th Street
Austin, TX 78702
Community Partner:
Texas After Violence Project
Dates:
Friday September 2, 2022
Saturday September 3 2022
Sunday September 4, 2022
Venue Partner:
Georgia State University College of Law
85 Park Place NE
Atlanta, GA 30303
Community Partner:
Southern Center for Human Rights
Dates:
Thursday August 25, 2022
Friday August 26, 2022
Saturday August 27, 2022
Venue Partner:
The Ramkat
170 W. 9th St.
Winston-Salem, NC 27101
Community Partner:
Disability Rights NC
Dates:
Saturday August 20, 2022
Sunday August 21, 2022
Venue Partner:
The Anacostia Playhouse
22020 Shannon Place, SE, Washington, DC 20020
Community Partner:
DC Justice Lab
Dates:
Friday August 12, 2022
Saturday August 13, 2022
Sunday August 14, 2022
Venue Partner:
Eastern State Penitentiary
2027 Fairmount Avenue, Philadelphia, PA 19130
Community Partner:
Abolitionist Law Center
Dates:
Tuesday August 9, 2022
Wednesday August 10, 2022
Venue Partner:
The Jam Handy
2900 E Grand Blvd, Detroit, MI 48202
Community Partner:
Open MI Door
Dates:
Friday August 5, 2022
Saturday August 6, 2022
Sunday August 7, 2022
Venue Partner:
Haymarket House
800 W Buena Ave, Chicago IL 60613
Community Partner:
Haymarket Books
Dates:
Wednesday August 17, 2022
Thursday August 18, 2022
Venue Partner:
The Reginald F. Lewis Museum of African American History and Culture
830 E Pratt St, Baltimore, MD 21202
Community Partner:
Interfaith Action for Human Rights
Dates:
Saturday August 20, 2022
Sunday August 21, 2022
Venue Partner:
The Anacostia Playhouse
22020 Shannon Place, SE, Washington, DC 20020
Community Partner:
DC Justice Lab