We recently talked with Kathleen Greenfield (they/them, she/her), Kate Rubin (she/her), and Emma Zabloski (she/her), our newest additions to the Teaching Artist Spotlight series. In addition to their work with the Justice Arts Coalition, they are also teaching artists and theatrical collaborators with William Head on Stage (WHoS) at William Head Institution in Victoria, BC.
William Head on Stage Theatre Society (WHoS):
WHoS is the only prisoner-run prison theatre company in all of North America that invites the public into a federal institution to experience their shows. WHoS has been creating shows for the public for the last 39 years at William Head Institution, which you will find tucked away on the windy coast in the forests of Metchosin, a 35-minute drive from Victoria, BC. Members of the public may buy a ticket, enter through prison security to the prison gymnasium theatre and watch the fall play performed by the prisoners.
SNAFU Society of Unexpected Spectacles:
SNAFU has been collaborating with WHoS since 2010 and has co-produced 5 productions in the past decade. SNAFU artists create live theatre, puppet theatre, and dance theatre, based in Victoria, BC and touring across Canada to theatres and festivals. SNAFU is led by artists Kathleen Greenfield and Ingrid Hansen, who also teach speciality workshops in theatre, puppetry, playbuilding, viewpoints, and physical comedy.
JAC: How did you become involved in this work? What was your path to where you are today?
Kate Rubin: I had been working in the Greater Victoria area as a professional teaching theatre artist and always was interested in social justice issues and had worked on numerous projects over the years with other populations. I had heard about the work at WHoS from my colleagues and was curious and interested to be involved in some way. I was cast along with 2 other women for Macbeth in 2006 and have been involved with WHoS for the past 15 years in capacity as a performer, director, writer, facilitator, mentor and have helped launch initiatives within the prison like the Q & A, the first WHoS symposium, building a larger network of teaching artists, a screening and interview process for teaching artists wanting to work with WHoS, and general support of the men and the company in various ways that present themselves. I have spoken at a couple of conferences now about WHoS and am passionate about sharing the 40 year legacy of WHoS.
Kathleen Greenfield: I went to see my first WHoS play when I was still a student at the University of Victoria in 2004. Over the years, many of my colleagues were hired to either direct, perform or design shows with WHoS and I would attend but my focus is on creating new work, and WHoS was working with classic published plays.
In 2010, I went to see CHALK which was devised and directed by my (new at the time) creative partner, Ingrid Hansen. This show blew my mind for all of its creativity. The entire show was non-verbal, movement-based and created from the stories of the incarcerated participants, but I wanted to make sure that I was confident enough with my boundaries and wise enough to share some skills before I stepped into the Justice Arts world.
In 2013, I was at the point in my career where I finally felt ready to devote my time to a WHoS production. I was really inspired by the creation and storytelling work that the company was starting to produce with CHALK and Fractured Fables: A Prison Puppet Project. In 2014, after participating in some skills-building workshops to get my feet wet, I collaborated with Kate Rubin to write (and perform in) Time Waits for No One in 2014. I have since Directed two new plays, performed in three and collaborated in writing the five new scripts. SNAFU Society of Unexpected Spectacles has co-produced 5 plays with the WHOS board of directors since 2010.
Emma Zabloski: I have always been interested in art-making that is rooted in community building and co-creation of experience. My first experience with WHoS was going to see the production CHALK in 2010. This was my first encounter with the prison system and it was an incredibly humanizing and humbling experience. I was invited to join the artist team as a performer and facilitator by Kathleen Greenfield for the 2016 show, Sleeping Giants. The experience was transformative and opened my heart to the power of art in carceral contexts. Although I now live in Toronto, I have travelled back to facilitate movement and choreography sessions with the program and was slated to direct this year’s fall production, but… you know, Covid. Since being in Toronto, I have also facilitated theatre workshops at a new drama program at Grand Valley Institution for Women. These experiences inspired me to pursue social work studies, and I now have an MSW degree. Moving forward, I am excited to continue exploring the intersections between art, social justice, and healing.
JAC: In considering the work of your own organization, what is unique about the programming you have been creating?
KG: I feel that one of the most unique characteristics of WHoS is the fact that it is not a program that is regulated by Correctional Service Canada (CSC). It is a not-for-profit society run by a board of directors that are all incarcerated at William Head. The WHoS board of incarcerated participants get a chance to develop or practice skills in production and project management and liaise with the outside artists, hiring us directly. It is also unique because we get to bring outside audiences inside the institution to experience the performance. And these are FULL PRODUCTIONS with sound, lights, costumes, and a set all built by incarcerated folks.
KR: WHoS has been an organic creation, initiated and led by many people inside and out for the past 40 years and has had a very unique and varied life of its own. It is valued highly by the men involved (past and present), the larger community, and by many people in both the arts and corrections and social justice worlds. It has remained alive through different political and social upheavals and challenges, and every warden so far has seen the value in the men continuing to run and keep this company going. In the past 10 years, we have been mostly devising original work with the men and building the capacity of the company, in the hope of providing more opportunity for the men inside to engage in all the aspects of building a show. We are also building the capacity of those of us working in this field through trainings, workshops, discussions, forums, and building our own form of creative activism within the institutional systems that we work.
JAC: What has been the most rewarding part of your experience working with incarcerated artists?
EZ: I am grateful for the openings. Where I get to witness residents take creative risks and step into their vulnerability. Where unlikely connections and relationships are made. Where I am constantly being surprised and having my assumptions challenged. And where we get to collectively resist an oppressive system through the power of making art.
KG: I like the parts where I get to listen and then accept stories that I hear as little gifts. I like to collect these gifts and mush them all together into a collective story, puzzling the pieces into one cohesive performance. I love discovering participants’ secret talents that maybe someone told them they weren’t good at as a kid. I like to keep an eye out when we are playing drama games, freewriting, singing songs or dancing to see what gifts people don’t even know they have, and then push them just hard enough to feel confident to share it with each other and eventually an audience. I find this process to be very organic and something hard to teach to other facilitators … like it is my own special skill.
KR:
- Seeing the effects this work has on an individual, be it a momentary delight or release, a small behavioral change, or a complete lifestyle change where an individual may never reoffend
- Watching the delight and freedom of expression that comes in the moment to moment creative work and seeing the confidence of everyone involved grow as we build the play and then perform in front of many audiences over 5 weeks
- Witnessing the moments of discovery and mutual understanding that can develop between the men and audience members in the 20-minute Q & A period after the show
- Experiencing and learning about different cultures represented by the men in jail, including a large Indigenous population. In Canada, there is a high proportion of Indigneous peoples in federal and provincial institutions representing the racial intolerance, inequity and racist beginnings of our county . We have felt inspired to help create a dialogue about tolerance and inclusivity within the WHoS cohort.
- Helping to build understanding and tolerance within the institution (staff and security) about the work we do with the men
JAC: As you know, the JAC is focused on ways in which art can connect those in the prison system with those on the outside. How has this relationship been jeopardized by COVID-19? How have you been keeping connections active during this time?
KG: For almost 40 years, we have produced a large-scale production of with up to 30 incarcerated cast members and roughly 2000 public audience members over 5 weeks in a converted gymnasium. This will be the first time in 39 years where we will not present a play in the fall. We spend almost half the year writing, improvising, workshopping, choreographing and supporting the incarcerated men. This year, we will not be allowed into William Head until maybe November (but most likely January) and so we will not be able to develop the bond that theatre inevitably creates.
BUT…we are working on the logistics of an Audio Project that we can share with a larger network of Prison Artists and Teaching Artists. We are also keeping Inside Artists engaged with the WHoS Great Creative Exchange.
When Covid [COVID-19] hit and theaters closed, SNAFU was offered an opportunity to be part of a socially-distanced live-theatre festival called SKAMpede. With a bit of funding, we were able to pay two returned citizens to perform alongside two teaching artists. It has been part of our mission for a while now to form an outside performance troupe to support Returned Citizens in the community. Now we have concentrated time to envision what an outside performance troupe would look like, and how we can carry out projects that might provide some financial support when jobs are hard to find. Our first performance was a success and we are so excited to see where these small performances in the community will take us.
EZ: Through Covid, we have been working hard to stay connected and offer SOMETHING to residents to help shake the Covid blues. We have heard from residents that morale is low and tensions are high inside the institution right now. Residents’ lives are even more restricted than normal with less contact and access to programs.
As artists, we would normally be at William Head offering weekly creative workshops. In lieu of this, we have been developing a Creative Exchange program over the past couple of months, which finally launched mid-August! We are hoping this project will help us stay connected while providing a creative outlet for residents. Creative prompts (writing and visual art exercises) will be sent to inside and outside artists every two weeks. We will then swap our artwork with each other and share our thoughts through writing. We are incredibly lucky to have a program officer and WHoS board members at the institution to help facilitate the process. We have been able to stay connected through email and phone meetings once or twice a month and collaborate on adapting our workshops and theatre production this year.
JAC: As we navigate this unprecedented time across our national landscape, both concerning Covid-19 and anti-racism protests, what challenges have emerged in your work with artists, specifically those who are impacted by the criminal justice system?
KR:
- We have not been able to get inside the prison since the beginning of March.
- We have had very minimal connection with the men we know through some phone calls and no connection to any potential new residents interested in joining WHoS.
- The institution staff have had hours cut back and the men at William Head Institution are also very limited in having any extracurricular activity.
- Our production work with the men this year would have had us in the prison once a week through the spring and then starting in mid June, we would normally be going in 2-3 times a week to devise the fall play. By mid August, we would be inside 4x a week, have a script drafted, and would be rehearsing and building sets, costumes, lighting,etc.
- Not being able to work with the men and develop a team means that we are relying on one WHoS board member and a staff member to convey anything we want to impart about possible creative ventures during Covid.
- The chances for exclusion are high because we can’t guarantee that all communities within the institution are being reached and we have no real way of addressing that from the outside.
- Any networking with colleagues is mainly done by Zoom calls and these can be challenging, especially in large groups, although they at least provide some connection and support
KG: It’s challenging to not have a chance to communicate with our WHoS participants face- to-face. To try to organize and facilitate drama workshops without direct contact with participants makes you realize how important body language, facial expressions, and inflection are when we are creating theatre. A lot of anxieties come up when we encourage participants to be vulnerable with us and with each other. When we are not present to respond to vulnerable moments and realizations, it can be discouraging. We have an “everyone welcome” policy in our workshop spaces, but it is difficult to ensure that the group is not being divided by race, faith, class or status within the prison when we are not in the space. It is challenging to not be inside, actively ensuring that everyone is being welcomed to participate in our Creative Exchange Project. So much of our work is “lead by example.”
JAC: What action do you feel is necessary to alleviate the safety concerns that incarcerated people face, in light of the Coronavirus crisis?
EZ: Luckily, there has not been a Covid outbreak at William Head. The institution is starting to talk about what opening up to volunteers and teaching artists again might look like. We don’t anticipate being able to enter the institution until October or November at the earliest. There will no doubt be strict institutional procedures in place when this does happen, but I think it is also important to keep having the conversation as a team and consider what the risks are for residents. We have also heard from the institution that they are exploring the idea of video conferencing as a teaching platform, which is new (and exciting!) territory.
KR:
- Strong checks and balances allowing people into the institution
- Temperatures taken
- Covid testing
- Masks worn
- Hand washing
- 2 metre distancing. *We would normally go into the prison with as many as 12 outside artists at a time when we are working on a production. Now, we will most likely begin with 2 teaching artists at a time. I say two because I think we still need to support each other in the work as teaching artists, and it is also important that the men have the option to creatively connect with different teaching artists. The population at William Head is currently divided up into three bubbles. So one idea would be to work with men that are already in a bubble together, meaning that teaching artists would just need to keep the 2 meter distance and participants can be freed up in their theatre work with each other.
- Not work with any immune compromised or extremely vulnerable men * Some kind of screening potentially to make that decision
JAC: The Justice Arts Coalition, as it grows, will continue to seek out and implement a vision of how to better support teaching artists. In your view, what does a supportive network need to include?
KG: I really like the hands-on workshops with smaller groups that connect Teaching Artists in a practical way. I learn so much more from others through working than I do with talking.
KR: It needs to include:
- Dialogue and exchange amongst people working with incarcerated individuals, like the Wednesday JAC meetings
- Linking people to different programs and institutions through the database and JAC email stream
- Support with creating and building sustainable funding for the different work we all do
- Online conferences and hopefully live conferences once there is a vaccine
- Podcast
- Workshops
- Linking mentors with emerging teaching artists.
EZ: I really appreciate the opportunity to share curriculum and program ideas and successes with each other!
JAC: As our art networks look to the future, how do you hope the pandemic, as well as this period of protest, will alter the public’s understanding of the justice system?
KR: Given a global pause unlike anything before, I hope we can take the time to reevaluate and make the beginning changes necessary to shift how incarcerated people are treated, and in particular to validate the transformative power of the arts to help build esteem, understanding, tolerance and many basic skills sets.
EZ: I am really hoping that the cracks in our systems have been revealed to the point where it will be unacceptable to “return to normal”. It is hard to ignore racial injustices right now because protests and calls to action are happening on such a large scale. We are seeing it in the momentum of the Black Lives Matter movement, in calls to defund the police, in conversations about abolishing prisons. Structural changes of this amplitude take time. But I do hope that folks are taking this opportunity to at least imagine what an alternative landscape might look like.
As for our artist team, I hope that we can continue to grapple with the injustices of structural racism and systemic oppression, and critically examine what our roles are in the carceral space. Art can be an incredibly powerful tool for collectively and critically exploring issues, and for bridging divides between different groups.
KG: I really do believe that WHoS (and the structure of how WHoS operates) will weather this storm and produce a wonderful new project for their 40th Anniversary. I already have members of the public emailing to find out more about what WHoS has planning for this year and the next. It is very difficult, at this time, to see how the recent period of protest has affected the population of William Head, but it has been on my mind in every short phone conversation I have had with our staff liaison and with the leader of the WHoS group.
Racist behaviours and power imbalances that I have witnessed working inside of William Head have always been subtle. When I have no way to engage with the marginalized groups inside, it becomes very difficult to shed light on microaggressions that are, for sure, happening. When we are finally able to meet again, I would like to start off with creating a contract with the men, identifying some of the micro-aggressions that take place and challenging us all to “be better”, instead of reporting micro-aggressions to the Prison Administration as I think this would just lead to a cycle of policy, punishment and defensive responses from WHoS’ leadership.
JAC: What led you to JAC, and how has your experience with JAC served your own work?
KR: I had heard of JAC through some colleagues and had seen its acronym through the California Corrections conference, and had been curious about it. A colleague told me she had just joined the Wednesday group in early April and I joined up given a need for connection to others doing this work. We are in the midst of planning a second conference symposium and it seemed like a great thing to do at this time of Covid to connect up with others who do similar work. I told other members in the WHoS team and a number have joined up including Kathleen and Emma.
KG: Right before COVID struck in March, I had reached out to a small collective of WHoS facilitators to discuss the idea of organizing a networking event to commemorate the 40th anniversary of WHoS and also host a convergence of Justice Arts practitioners from all over the world to share skills, practices and experiences. Come on, don’t you all want to come visit us in the most beautiful place on earth?
We started weekly meetings to discuss what this event would look like and what networks already existed to help make this event a reality. It still might be a huge risk to plan a large-scale in-person conference for November of 2021 based on what governments are saying about travel restrictions, but maybe in 2022? We are still doing all sorts of fun work archiving 40 years of history, collecting stories of WHoS alumni and past teaching artists. BUT, one of the most exciting outcomes of our collective meetings has been connecting with the JAC network and learning about all of the work that Teaching Artists are doing to ensure that justice arts folks remain connected
EZ: I was invited to join JAC by other members of WHoS. It has been exciting and inspiring to tap into such a large network of prison artists. I had no idea this existed! Since JAC is mostly U.S. based, there are some contextual differences for us as Canadians. But it has nonetheless been an incredible resource. I have joined the JAC Podcast team as a core organizer. Through this, I am learning so much about conceptualizing and planning digital projects, including receiving mentorship from a podcast producer. These are all skills I plan to take back to William Head this fall/winter as we develop our own digital project with participants.
Kathleen Greenfield (they/them, she/her)
Kathleen lives and collaborates on the territories of the WSÁNEĆ, Lkwungen & Wyomilth people. As Co-Artistic Director of SNAFU, Kathleen has directed the premiere productions of Little Orange Man, Kitt & Jane and Interstellar Elder. In 2013, Kathleen joined the artistic team of William Head on Stage Prison Theatre as a performer, facilitator and writer. In 2019, Kathleen devised and directed The Emerald City Project, co-produced by SNAFU and WHOS.
Kate Rubin (sher/her)
Kate Rubin is an independent teaching theatre artist in Victoria, British Columbia and has worked over the past 30 years with many theatre companies and organizations as a performer, director, facilitator and coach. She initiated and ran her own theatre studio for 23 years and in the past 15 years has also worked in the capacity as a performer, director and teacher/mentor with William Head on Stage Theatre Company at William Head Federal Institution.
Emma Zabloski (she/her)
Emma is a theatre creator, arts educator, and youth worker. With her company Zopyra Theatre, she specializes in playful, site-specific, and interactive performance. Emma is a facilitator and performer with prison theatre project William Head on Stage, and has delivered workshops with Theatre of the Beat at Grand Valley Institution for Women. She recently completed her MSW degree from the University of Toronto. Emma loves sewing clothes, dancing flamenco, and soaking up nature time!
For more information on WHoS and SNAFU, please visit:
William Head on Stage: https://whonstage.weebly.com
SNAFU Society of Unexpected Spectacles: https://www.snafudance.com
