Meta Theatre Company: Using Theatre to Fight Oppression and Mass Incarceration

Meta Theatre Company is a New Jersey-based grassroots social justice theatre company that creates live performance for communities to share lived experiences, heal, and grow. They are composed of an “outside-cast” as well as an “inside-cast,” as there are both non-incarcerated and incarcerated members. Non-incarcerated members started going to the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women in Clinton, New Jersey around six years ago to start a theatre workshop with the women there. Here, incarcerated women are able to work through and then write about their experiences before and while in prison. Then, their pieces are performed both within the prison every six months as well as outside of the prison. The shows inside Edna Mahan inspire other incarcerated women to heal from trauma and make changes in their own lives while shows outside the prison bring these women’s experiences into the light.

I spoke with Caroline Hann and Barbara Cannell, co founders of Meta Theatre Company, to discuss the history and mission of Meta, along with the best and most difficult parts of being a part of a grassroots social justice theatre organization.

How often do you perform?

Caroline: Our season starts in September and goes through May. Our peak season is around MLK weekend, Women’s History Month in March, stopping sexual assault against women and the LGBTQIA community in April, and then a lot of educational stuff happens when back to school happens. Usually in the summer is when we write and power down a little bit.

When and by whom was Meta Theatre Company started?

Caroline: I started this idea way back before I ever met Barbara. We were both professional actresses and I was living in New York City. I changed careers, became a social worker, and went to Hunter College and it was there that I met Dr. Rhea Almeida and did some Post-Grad training in New Jersey. She developed this form of family therapy, transformative family therapy, which is social justice based. When I went through her intensive two-year training, I kept thinking, if you combine this model with theatre you could connect communities.

It was a good 7 years ago I was doing the Vagina Monologues out here in NJ and Barbara was in that same cast. When I met Barbara I was just blown away by her acting chops and who she was. I walked up to her at the cast party and was like, “Hey, I got this idea to start a social justice theatre company.” I pitched it to her and she said yes. Six years ago is when we started volunteering at Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women and taking this model into the prison and rehearsing there.

What is Meta Theatre Company’s mission?

Caroline: We really focus on sharing our lived experiences. Everything we perform and produce is our lived lives, our true experiences, across race, class, gender, sexual orientation, and how those larger systems have impacted us. I guess our mission is that audiences come see us and think, “Oh, that has happened to me,” or, “Why hasn’t that happened to me? Have I had some privileges here that I’ve been insulated about?”

When we’ve taken the Transformative Justice Theatre model and rehearsed it inside/outside the prison walls, we see the same results. It is very liberating to have a space to share your story that may have been traumatizing, joyful, it could have been a lot of things. And when we connect it back to these larger systems and how they’ve treated us, then it really moves people to heal and also moves people to action. Change laws and policies.

What does becoming an actor with Meta Theatre Company entail?

Barbara: We have seven members outside and five inside Edna Mahan. Women who are currently incarcerated and part of the Meta Theatre process tell us how healing it is for them to have a safe space to work through things that have happened to them before incarceration.

At first, some women are unsure if they can perform, because they’ve never tried it. However, after a few rehearsals they blossom into being so excited to share their work. To see that process happen where a woman is unsure at first if she can tell her story, and then watch her confidence change with the support of the social justice model, is very satisfying to be part of. We truly believe it is the connection of the personal story, and how it is impacted by the larger systems that brings about this change for them, and for us.

Caroline: Our inside cast are incredible activists. A lot of times when we talk about our work, people think that we are a charitable organization that goes in and just does theatre, and that is not it at all. The women of the inside cast are strong advocates for themselves. They advocated to have their own show every six months and the next one is coming up in December. They will be performing their own show for women in the prison, and they do it so they can help other women in the prison start to understand the traumas that have happened to them. They specifically write their shows around that.

What types of shows do you perform?

Caroline: For our shows outside the prison, we have been performing, “Dismantling the Racism Machine: A Manual and Toolbox.” This show is based on concepts from Dr. Karen Gaffney’s book of the same title. We act out the invention of race and show that race is not biological, but rather a social construct interwoven in our laws and policies. We take the scene back to Bacon’s Rebellion during the 1600’s. We then act out scenes chronologically through time to highlight how these same systemic patterns from the 1600’s are present throughout the decades and in our daily lives today. Dr. Gaffney also performs with us in this show.

We perform another show called, “Speak Up”. It is a bystander intervention show that acts out a real life experience of a friend of Meta’s when he was shopping in a store, and he interrupted a micro aggression from a customer to a store employee (the customer was white/male and the employee was black/female). We teach the audience about microaggressions, and how there are different ways to interrupt them based on what is happening in the moment. We always stress safety and consent in these situations, especially when they are in public and it is a stranger. In the same show, we act out what microaggressions look like with people we do know, like at work, and how to interrupt it.

Have you received any types of pushback, maybe from prisons, or has the response been all positive and supportive?

Caroline: Volunteering in the prison has changed over the years. When we first went in, the chaplain that brought us into volunteering had a social justice way of looking at at things. Then, she retired. Now, there has been a changeover of administration several times since then, and that change over is always starting over for us. We have to build new relationships with the administration. It took the inside cast three years to advocate to perform their shows live inside for the other women incarcerated, but they did it.

We get a lot of positive feedback from our shows outside the prison walls. Audiences tell us that by watching the show, it helps them expand how they look at issues around race, class, gender and sexual orientation. Transformative justice theatre helps people get “out of their heads” and focus on a story that initially might not have anything to do with them, personally, but once we start discussing it, they may see themselves in that story whether they are the oppressed or the oppressor. It gives a context for people to talk about change without getting into power struggles.

What is the most rewarding part of being a part of MTC?

Barbara: Meta as a whole makes you reflect on yourself, on your inner being and what I mean by that is checking on my own biases all the time. This reflection allows you to see beyond that person’s crime, to see the person as a human being, as an individual that somehow has gotten themselves caught up in whatever situation they’ve gotten themselves caught up in. So I look at that and I look at my bias about that and say okay you need to back up because we don’t know the whole story about that person. It could be me, Caroline, any of us. So Meta has allowed me to think deeper in terms of my feelings about people who are incarcerated, it has allowed me to become more consciously aware of my thinking, my feelings about people, about people incarcerated, deeper thinking about the system itself and how it needs to be totally dismantled. Completely dismantled. And how much we need mental health hospitals to help the people that are incarcerated.

Caroline: I agree with everything she has said. The two pieces that are most rewarding for me are when I get to sit in a rehearsal with women who are incarcerated and they develop their work and I see it go from an idea all the way to that performance, it is so powerful, it really changes your life to watch somebody do that. The talent we have in our cast is incredible. Watching them take back control of their story, their narrative, when they are in a place where they are not allowed to have any control, no humanity, it’s horrible… so many times we hear from women about sexual assaults that had happened before prison, domestic violence, addiction, it is as if they were told it was all their fault. But when you can create pieces where you are like, wait a second, now I don’t feel so crazy, that to me is worth everything.

What is the most difficult?

Barbara: The most difficult thing is the ever changing process of how we bring in our materials to the prison. The process is very bureaucratic. Everything has to be approved way in advance. So, if we want to bring in music to listen, costumes, books, or pens, we have to get it approved on paper by multiple administrators. This requires emailing and following up repeatedly. Once approved, that paper has to be at the check in when we arrive. If it is not there, we cannot bring in anything but ourselves.

Caroline: We only experience it one time a week, the women who are incarcerated are experiencing it 24/7 and I’m always in awe of their resilience by living their lives in the face of so much power and control.

If you are interested in reading a bit more about Meta Theatre Company or booking them, visit their website.