CAS CONNECT 2014

21 Once upon a time, an OSU assistant professor of acting and a group of her most talented students went to prison. None of them had committed a crime nor were they being punished. In fact, each of them felt privileged. “It was a great experience, something I will never forget,” OSU sophomore Kia Dorsey says. Make no mistake, apprehen- sion existed and even tears were shed but there was also laughter and, ultimately, under- standing. By pulling her students so far out of their comfort zone, Jodi Jinks saw the vision of her ArtsAloud-OSU program realized at the John H. Lilley Correctional Center in Boley, Okla. It was April 18, 2014 — truly an “Orange Friday” if you consider the prison uniform — and Jinks brought her students to the facil- ity to perform for the inmates. Acting out any script in that envi- ronment would induce goose pimples but Jinks’ approach added a new level of anxiety. She teaches “devised theatre,” in which the inmates worked with her to tell their stories and create a performance. They had already performed this material for their fellow prisoners but now the OSU students were going to play that same material back to those who lived the stories and penned the script. CONTINUES Imagine playing the part of a man nicknamed “Bear” directly in front of him. “This kind of acting experi- ence takes the notion of ‘embod- ied learning’ to another level,” professor and head of the theatre department Andrew Kimbrough says. “The students get a very powerful sense of the lived experience of the inmates/ writers.” Jinks established this program at OSU after earning the Mary Lou Lemon professorship in January though she began this type of work several years ago at women’s prisons in Texas. Her first effort in Oklahoma brought her (and volunteer Linda Smolen, who served as co-director of the play) to a mini- mum-security, all-male facility, and though the gender of her subjects changed in Oklahoma, the overall reaction did not. “They’re thankful for the inter- action,” Jinks says. “I think they’re loving the fact that they’re being heard, that they have a story people actually want to hear.” After several months of writ- ing and collaborating with Jinks, the inmates created a show called Reflections of Time, which chronicled “the challenges, the joys, and the dreams of these particular men, and reminds us that we are all so much more than our worst choices.” A month before the OSU students arrived, the inmates performed the show for their contempo- raries. The script was packed with inside jokes and included poetry, short scenes and even a band with inmates who did not take part in the class. “It just went so well,” Jinks says. OSU graduate student Lacy Delaino was among the small group of people from outside the prison to observe the show. “I had no expectat ions of it whatsoever,” Delaino says, “but they performed in such an incredible way.” The subject matter, perhaps not surprisingly, often touched on forgiveness but also included stories of who they were before prison and even who had they had become while inside the correctional center. It sounds like a therapeutic process, but Jinks is quick to point out her role is to help them create a work of art. “I am not a psychologist,” Jinks says emphatically. “I stay away from the dark material because I don’t have the skills to do anything with that. When I hear people talk about ‘healing’ in association with this work, I want to push back.”