Starting June 2018, with support from the DOC Community Partnerships staff, The Town Hall has hosted Storytellers Lab. Originally, it began as theatre programming for young men, ages 18-21, on Rikers Island, aimed at using the arts as a catalyst for individual growth and self-discovery. Now, in collaboration with The Fortune Society, Storytellers Lab has transformed to impact formerly incarcerated folks and folks with justice histories through a uniquely personalized curriculum rooted in theatre practices, storytelling, and creative movement, made by multi-hyphenate artist, educator, and program co-creator, Chesney Snow.
Participants are engaged through creative mediums and artistic culturally relevant material, which include ties to Town Hall’s artistic history. Such activities as playwriting, improv, beatboxing, and materials such as literary works, musical pieces, theatrical canon and more, work to provide inspiration and create vulnerability amongst the participants.
Through Chesney Snow’s dual professorship with Berklee NYC’s Power Station and Princeton University, Storytellers Lab’s participants collaborated with NYC Berklee college students during the Fall ‘22 season, and took stage at Princeton University during the Spring ‘23 Season. Town Hall Teaching Artists bring in materials to support their lessons such as audio speakers to play music, koosh balls to facilitate warm-up activities, and writing and reading materials. The combination of hands-on training in theatre arts and storytelling, with an active application to the artistic history of Town Hall allows these participants to have the chance to be radically vulnerable with themselves and each other.
Photo of Chon Smith, Storytellers Lab Participant, Performing at Berklee NYC In Moments in Time
At NYC Berklee Power Station:
Using a devised theater method, The Fortune Society members were able to hold a workshop showcase of solo original performances, supported by the college students, to an open audience. The impact of this showcase is to inspire the NYC community to take action to be active in changing the carceral system. The devised theater method produced songs, poems, dance, and more, all collected together as Moments in Time. This class of Fortune participants has returned for the ‘23 spring season to expand the scope of the audience that is reached, traveling to Princeton University with new perspectives on their devised stories from the Fall, and a new format of performances.
At Princeton:
After receiving a copy of Reginald Dwayne Betts’ Felon, returning Fortune members both looked through previous writings of their own, and created new pieces after a series of different writing prompts surrounding themes decided on by participants. Structuring their compiled writings into a script, participants explored the setting of passengers on a train as the overarching thread between their stories. On March 4th, 2023, at Princeton University, a performance of Felon: An American Washi Tale by Reginald Dwayne Betts took place, a compelling solo theater show in which Betts explored the experience and consequences of his incarceration, based on his poetry collection, Felon. After this show, participants joined the stage and performed their vignettes in their piece titled Next Stop. The Storytellers Lab participants also engaged in conversations with students from the Princeton university Preparatory Program (PUPP) to discuss the themes of social justice and the US incarceration system present in their performance.
Photo credit Jon Sweeney / Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton University
Why “Storytellers Lab”?
Why exactly do we call this program, ‘Storytellers Lab”? In words of Storytellers Lab co-founder Chesney Snow, “Storytellers such as Fannie Lou Hamer, Malcolm X, Fred Hampton, James Baldwin, and Martin Luther King have inspired movements towards justice, social transformation, and resistance towards policies that have been recognized internationally as terrorism and torture. We present these stories to you so that you may be inspired to get involved with this movement of reforming the American justice system. We cannot do this alone. If you are moved by these stories, we encourage you to do something big or small.”
Click here to hear words from Chesney Snow on the importance of Storytellers Lab:
“Stories have power, stories build movements, stories inspire people. And if we can tell the story instead of having other people tell the story for us, then we can actually galvanize people to shift towards change.”
-Chesney Snow
About Fortune Society
Founded in 1967, The Fortune Society’s vision is to foster a world where those who are incarcerated or formerly incarcerated will thrive as positive, contributing members of society. They do this through a holistic, one-stop model of service provision.
Their continuum of care is informed and implemented by professionals with cultural backgrounds and life experiences similar to those of the participants. They serve thousands of individuals annually via expanding New York locations: the service centers in Long Island City, Queens and Morrisania, the Bronx, as well as several housing residences throughout the city. The Fortune Society’s program models are recognized both nationally and internationally for their quality and innovation.
Town Hall is grateful to The Fortune Society and Jamie Maleszka, Director of Creative Arts, for their continued collaboration and support of this program, and their trust in our program.
This program is supported by The Achelis & Bodman Foundation, The Hearst Foundations Inc., Henry Nias Foundation, The Jacob & Valeria Langeloth Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, and New York State Council on the Arts