The Tour
1 Bus. 9 Humans. 10 Citites. 25 Performances. Infinite Impact.
Every respondent intends to take at least one action after attending The BOX. 90% of our respondents would vote in favor of legislation limiting solitary confinement and incarceration.
YCORE SURVEY RESULTS
“You succeeded in opening my mind to imagine and see how an individual, confined, can break down barriers. If someone in one of the most unlikely and unimaginably horrific circumstances can become an agent of transformative change, I too can accomplish profound things!”
BEVERLY LEWIS, STUDENT
“I cannot recall a theater experience that had a greater lock on the conscience of its audience. We, the audience, become complicit spectators to a staged synecdoche of America’s shame. It was not just good theater, it was phenomenal.”
JOHN STOLTENBERG, DC THEATER ARTS CRITIC
"The tour gave me a new jump start, more energy to fight even harder to end solitary confinement. It also brought back memories of the pain and suffering we endured, that is still happening today."
JOHN THOMPSON JR. ABOLITIONIST LAW CENTER
The Story of the End of Isolation Tour and The BOX
Loneliness. Sensory Deprivation. Torture. Words on a page that were brought to life for live audiences to witness, by people who have lived through it. The End of Isolation Tour is a theatrical production toured 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.
Now, the experience of the tour and its impact are being transformed into a featured length documentary, produced with support from the Mellon Foundation and co-directed by Sarah Shourd and Bobby Fields.
We Did It!
Our tour bus hit the road in July 2022, visiting ten cities in two months and traveling over 8,000 miles.
TOUR MEDIA
The End of Isolation Tour made headlines in the summer of 2022, elevating the stories and voices of those impacted by our criminal legal system. Check out the articles below to hear what journalists around the country had to say about our work and impact.
‘The BOX,’ an immersive play into the deep end of the U.S. prison system, is at Eastern State Penitentiary
FAQ's
What We Do
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.
What We Do
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.
National Partners
The End of Isolation Tour would not be possible without our Presenting Sponsor, The Pulitzer Center; our National Sponsor Unlock The Box, and our Organizational Ally, Solitary Watch.
Abolitionist Law Center
The Abolitionist Law Center is a public interest law firm inspired by the struggle of political and politicized prisoners, and organized for the purpose of abolishing class and race based mass incarceration in the United States.
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DC Justice Lab
DC Justice Lab is a team of law and policy experts researching, organizing, and advocating for large-scale changes to the District’s criminal legal system. We develop smarter safety solutions that are evidence-driven, community-rooted, and racially just. We aim to fully transform the District’s approach to public safety and make it a national leader in justice reform.
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DecARcerate Arkansas
Decarcerate Arkansas - DecARcerate works to end mass incarceration in Arkansas through community education, smart legislation, advocacy, and empowering the leadership of individuals personally affected by the criminal punishment system.
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Arkansas Justice Reform Coalition
Here at Arkansas Justice Reform Coalition, we will move forward policies and investments that will end mass incarceration led by the voice & power of the individuals and families impacted.
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ArchCity Defenders
ArchCity Defenders is a holistic legal advocacy organization that combats the criminalization of poverty and state violence, especially in communities of color
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Texas After Violence Project
The Texas After Violence Project is a community-based archive and documentary project cultivating deeper understandings of the impacts of state-sanctioned violence on individuals, families, and communities.
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Haymarket Books
Haymarket Books is a radical, independent, nonprofit book publisher based in Chicago, a project of the Center for Economic Research and Social Change.
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Open MI Door
The goal of the Open MI Door campaign is to end solitary confinement in all Michigan prisons, jails, and juvenile detention facilities, bringing our state into full compliance with the UN’s Mandela Rules.
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Interfaith Action for Human Rights
IAHR represents people of faith who educate and advocate in Maryland, DC and Virginia for corrections systems that avoid unnecessarily punitive practices such as solitary confinement and that instead focus on rehabilitation and successful reentry.
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Disability Rights NC
Disability Rights North Carolina is a legal advocacy agency that fights for the rights of people with disabilities in North Carolina. We handle cases involving discrimination, abuse and other rights violations. All of our services are at no cost to North Carolinians with disabilities.
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Southern Center for Human Rights
The Southern Center for Human Rights is working for equality, dignity, and justice for people impacted by the criminal legal system in the Deep South. SCHR fights for a world free from mass incarceration, the death penalty, the criminalization of poverty, and racial injustice.
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Uptown People's Law Center Chicago
For over 40 years, Uptown People’s Law Center has fought on behalf of Illinois prisoners. UPLC is the only group that actively represents prisoners in both class action matters as well as individual cases.
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Detroit Justice Center
The Detroit Justice Center (DJC) is a non-profit law firm working alongside communities to create economic opportunities,
transform the justice system, and promote equitable and just cities.
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Designing Justice + Designing Spaces
We are an Oakland-based architecture and real estate development non-profit working to end mass incarceration through place-based solutions that address its root causes: poverty, racism, unequal access to resources, and the criminal justice system itself. Our work counters the traditional adversarial and punitive architecture of justice—courthouses, prisons, and jails—by creating spaces and buildings for restorative justice, community building, and housing for people coming out of incarceration.
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Voices Unbarred
Voices Unbarred centers the voices of people impacted by incarceration, and collaborates with theatre practitioners and policy organizations, to creatively reimagine the prison system and advocate for change. Through theatre and justice workshops, script writing, and interactive performances, participants affected by incarceration in the DC area are given a platform to share their stories, tackle complex issues, and lead the criminal justice reform movement.
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MUSE
MUSE Winston‑Salem is where
everyone in our community belongs.
Here, our city’s past, present, and future are a continuing conversation, not just archives and artifacts. Your perspective enriches the conversation, enlivens our community, and builds connection and understanding.
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NC Justice Center
Our mission is to eliminate poverty in North Carolina by ensuring that every household in the state has access to the resources, services, and fair treatment it needs to achieve economic security.
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Planting Justice
Grow Food. Grow Jobs. Grow Community.
Since 2009 Planting Justice has built over 550 edible permaculture gardens in the San Francisco Bay Area, worked with five high-schools to develop food justice curricula and created over 40 green jobs in the food justice movement for people transitioning from prison.
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Visualizing Abolition
Visualizing Abolition is a public scholarship initiative at University of California Santa Cruz developed by Professor Gina Dent, Feminist Studies, and Dr. Rachel Nelson, Director, Institute of the Arts and Sciences, in collaboration with artists, scholars, poets, lawyers and activists. With a 4-year program of art exhibitions, public events, postdoctoral fellowships, a faculty working group, and curriculum development that reaches across prison borders, the aim is to foster creative research and to shift the social attachment to prisons through art and education.
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Eastern State Penitentiary
Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site interprets the legacy of American criminal justice reform, from the nation’s founding through to the present day, within the long-abandoned cellblocks of the nation’s most historic prison. ESP's innovative preservation, interpretation, and public programs will move visitors to engage in dialogue and deepen the national conversation about criminal justice.
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AMEND
As a public health-focused program, AMEND seeks to abolish systems designed to inflict harm and perpetuate unequal access to health and human rights while also treating as urgent the need to do all we can to immediately reduce harm and safeguard the dignity and well-being of the millions of peoples currently enmeshed in these same systems.
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Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture
The Lewis Museum, the largest African American museum in Maryland, has been the authentic voice of Maryland African American history and culture since it opened in 2005. We tell our story through our permanent collection, special exhibitions, educational programs and public events.
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Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty
The death penalty is largely unsupported by Missouri constituents and as the number of pending death penalty cases and the population of Missouri's death row steadily declines, Missourians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty continues to be a driving force behind the movement to Abolish the death penalty in Missouri.
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Amistad Law Project
Amistad Law Project is a public interest law firm and organizing project working to end mass incarceration in Pennsylvania. Amistad Law Project works to abolish death by incarceration and longterm sentences, create alternatives to policing and get our communities the material resources and political power they need to thrive.
Learn MoreCommunity Partners
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:
- Ending the use of solitary confinement and mass incarceration
- Fighting for Transformative Justice
- Creating healing opportunities for individuals and communities who have been affected by solitary confinement and mass incarceration
- Uplifting and resourcing the community of survivors, advocates, and allies with an opportunity to end and heal the harms of confinement