Playing for Time Theatre Company (Book)

Perspectives from the Prison

Based on more than a decade of practice, Playing for Time Theatre Company presents the reader with a rich and invaluable resource for using theatre in criminal justice contexts, exploring ideas of identity, community, social justice and the power of the arts. The book analyses and reflects upon the company's evolution and unique model of practice, with university students and prisoners working side-by-side, led by industry professionals. The work draws on diverse methodologies and approaches, with chapters written from multiple perspectives, including a forensic psychologist, director, playwright, historian, student and ex-prisoners. Crucially, the voices and reflections of participating prisoners are central to the book. Providing unprecedented access to a significant body of prison theatre, Playing for Time Theatre Company presents both an overview and analysis of an extensive body of work, as well as offering perspectives on the efficacy of arts practice in the UK criminal justice system from 2000 onwards.  

Edition

Based on more than a decade of practice, Playing for Time Theatre Company presents the reader with a rich and invaluable resource for using theatre in criminal justice contexts, exploring ideas of identity, community, social justice and the power of the arts. The book analyses and reflects upon the company's evolution and unique model of practice, with university students and prisoners working side-by-side, led by industry professionals. The work draws on diverse methodologies and approaches, with chapters written from multiple perspectives, including a forensic psychologist, director, playwright, historian, student and ex-prisoners. Crucially, the voices and reflections of participating prisoners are central to the book. Providing unprecedented access to a significant body of prison theatre, Playing for Time Theatre Company presents both an overview and analysis of an extensive body of work, as well as offering perspectives on the efficacy of arts practice in the UK criminal justice system from 2000 onwards.  

Annie Mckean was a Senior Fellow in Knowledge Exchange at the University of Winchester lecturing in applied drama and theaterand drama in education. She was artistic director of Playing for Time Theatre Company, delivering theaterprojects in HMP Winchester, for over a decade.  

Kate Massey-Chase is an AHRC-funded PhD student at the University of Exeter, researching how applied theater could support young people in the transition between child and adolescent and adult mental health services, and a visiting lecturer on the MA Applied Theatre at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. 

Acknowledgements

Preface

Selina Busby

Introduction

Annie McKean with Kate Massey-Chase

Chapter 1: Transformation and Challenge in Insecure Worlds: The Arts in Secure Institutions

Annie McKean

Chapter 2: Playing for Time Theatre Company: A Model of Practice

Annie McKean

Chapter 3: Playing for Time in ‘The Dolls’ House’: Issues of Community and Collaboration in the Devising of Theatre in a Women’s Prison

Annie McKean

Chapter 4: The Carlisle Memorial Refuge, Winchester 1868–81: ‘That Most Difficult of All Social Questions’ – A Nineteenth-Century Approach to the Rehabilitation of Women Prisoners

Pat Thompson

Chapter 5: Stage Fright: What’s so Scary about Dressing Up?

Brian Woolland

Chapter 6: Telling the Self or Performing Another: The Exploration of Identity through Storytelling, Role and Analogy in West Hill, HMP Winchester

Kate Massey-Chase

Chapter 7: Lessons from the Prison: The Space between Two Worlds

Annie McKean

Chapter 8: Our Country’s Good by Timberlake Wertenbaker: Creating Liberatory Spaces? Reflections on Process and Performance

Marianne Sharp

Chapter 9: The Drama of Change: A Comparative Study of University Students’ and Prisoners’ Dispositional Empathy, Need for Closure and Future Possible Selves

Ann Henry

Chapter 10: Exit Stage Left: Conversation, Creative Writing and Coping with Loss: An Introduction to Scott’s Diary

Kass Boucher

Chapter 11: From the Fishbowl to the Sea: A Nine-Week Journey

Scott

Chapter 12: Over the Wall Theatre Company

Fiona Mackie

Postscript

Notes on Contributors

Index

'Playing for Time is an insightful book sharing the more unusual aspects of drama work in prisons and the vital role it plays in the reduction of reoffending in the lives of those who face the challenging demands of imprisonment – and release.'

Amanda Kipling, Drama Magazine, Summer 2019
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