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!
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We need your help to get on the road. We’ve already raised $300k and only need to raise $150k more. Any amount helps!
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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.
Our tour bus hits the road in July and hopefully we’re coming to a location near you. The official tour stops haven’t been decided, but we’re hoping to hit most of the locations on the map below.
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.
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- – 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.
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 going beyond the live experience of The End of Isolation Tour by creating a five-part 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.
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: