RECLAIM

Theater directors Sara Katzoff and Amy Brentano will come together again in 2025 to create an hour long piece of devised theater with five actors/collaborators. The over 90 hour development and rehearsal period will take place at The Foundry, a multidisciplinary performing arts venue in West Stockbridge, MA in June through August for three performances at Berkshire Community College in Pittsfield, MA. 

The devised piece of theater, entitled RECLAIM, will be created from approximately 20 hours of transcribed interviews with relatives and/or close friends of justice involved members of the Second Street Second Chances Community and others. These interviews have been facilitated with help from Executive Director Lindsay Maynard and other staff at the organization. The interviews focus on how having a close relationship with formally and/ or currently incarcerated persons has impacted the interviewees. 

The pool of interviewees will be intergenerational though no children will be interviewed. However, adults who’ve experienced having previously or currently incarcerated individuals in their lives as children might share those stories. 

The mission of the piece is to raise awareness of how incarceration affects not only the incarcerated individual, but meaningfully impacts and touches the lives of all persons involved on many levels. The intention is to powerfully uplift and honor the lives of those who’ve experienced incarceration from inside and outside the system and the stories will be gathered and treated with respect and dignity.

Rehearsals with actors begin in June and run through mid August at The Foundry. Part of the creative process for the past two collaborative productions included a dinner one evening at The Foundry as a meet and greet for the participants and the actors which will take place again this year.

Second Street has contracted videographer Keith Foreman to document the creative process and ultimately deliver a full length film capturing how the piece comes to life and impacts the community though its performance.

The performances at Berkshire Community College in Pittsfield, MA are Monday, August 18 at 7pm, Tuesday, August 19 at 2pm and 7pm.