The Lewis Center for the Arts’ Program in Theater will present Felon: An American Washi Tale by Reginald Dwayne Betts, developed and directed by Elise Thoron, on March 2 and 3 at 7:00 p.m. and March 4 at 2:30 p.m. at the Berlind Theatre at McCarter Theatre Center, 91 University Place on the Princeton campus. This solo show is performed by Betts, a formerly incarcerated individual and now an American Book Award-winning poet, lawyer, advocate for the rights of prisoners, founder of the nonprofit Freedom Reads, and recent recipient of a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship. Each performance of the solo show is paired with a conversation or musical performance: on March 2, the evening will include a panel discussion including Betts on literature, education and freedom, organized by the University Center for Human Values; on March 3, the evening will include a call-to-action conversation and reception led by Princeton’s Prison Teaching Initiative in collaboration with Students for Prison Education, Abolition and Reform; on March 4, the performance will be followed by a joyful celebration including PACE featuring The Trumpet Chics, a youth band from Camden, participants in Storyteller’s Lab, and theater lecturer Chesney Snow, marking the anniversary of Betts’ release from prison; and an exhibition by the artist who designed the set for the production is on view through March 5.
The Berlind Theatre is an accessible venue with wheelchair and companion seating available and an assistive listening system with headphones available from ushers. The March 2 performance will be open captioned. Guests in need of other access accommodations are invited to contact the Lewis Center at LewisCenter@princeton.edu at least one week prior to the event date.
Felon: An American Washi Tale strives to re-imagine paper and is based on Bett’s award-winning book of poetry, Felon. A solo performance that begins with the pages of a book being slid into a cell, traverses stoves made of toilet paper, “kites” from a father — “kites” is a slang moniker for letters received from family while in prison — handwritten affidavits, legal complaints, handmade paper and certificates of pardon, the variety of papers reveals what is possible and burdened by prison. Betts weaves traditional theater, poetry, fine art, and Japanese paper making aesthetic principles into a meditation on his own experiences of incarceration and his legal work to free individuals still in prison. This reflection on the challenges of living in the shadow of mass incarceration is a story of violence, love, and fatherhood. Directed and developed by Thoron, this “washi tale” moves literally and metaphorically beyond Betts’ own life, unwrapping the disturbing ways that prison touches everyone. Felon: An American Washi Tale is part of a series of collaborations between Thoron and visual artist Kyoko Ibe, designer of the set for the production, around the ideas and resonances of washi.
“Paper, perhaps surprisingly, is a key part of the prison experience,” Betts notes. “Paper gets you in and sometimes gets you free…Transforming the paper into art complexifies the experience, makes it more than loss, more than the account for crimes and prison time that seem to stalk.”
Betts was incarcerated as a teenager and spent nine years in prison, where he discovered poetry. “A single book, Dudley Randall’s The Black Poets, slid under my cell in the hole, introduced me to the poets that had me believing words can be carved into a kind of freedom,” recalls Betts. After his release, Betts earned a M.F.A. in creative writing from Warren Wilson College, and a Juris Doctor degree from Yale Law School. He served on President Barack Obama’s Coordinating Council of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. In 2020, he founded Freedom Reads, an organization that gives incarcerated people access to books by donating libraries to correctional facilities. In 2018 Betts received a Guggenheim Fellowship and in 2021 he was awarded a MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship. He is currently working on a Ph.D. in Law at Yale University.
For more than 20 years, Betts has used his poetry and essays to explore the world of prison and the effects of violence and incarceration on American society. Also the author of a memoir and two other collections of poetry, he has transformed his collection of poetry, Felon, into this solo theater show that explores the post incarceration experience and lingering consequences of a criminal record through poetry, stories, and engagement with the timeless and transcendental art of papermaking.
Reginald Dwayne Betts on the set of Felon: An American Washi Tale. Photo by Barbara Johnston courtesy of Reginald Dwayne Betts/Freedom Reads
The set for Felon: An American Washi Tale is designed and created by visual artist Kyoko Ibe from 1,000 squares of “prison paper” that papermaker Ruth Lignen constructed from the clothes of men Betts first met in prison using traditional Japanese washi papermaking techniques. The paper kites hang suspended from floor to ceiling in various groupings around the spare stage set. An exhibition of other works by Ibe made from washi paper, Washitales, is on view in the Hurley Gallery at the Lewis Arts complex through March 5 in conjunction with the production.
Director, playwright, translator and dramaturg Thoron has partnered with Ibe on a series of Washi Tale collaborations apart from Felon: An American Washi Tale. Their decade-long collaboration is documented in a new book, The Way of Washi Tales. Ibe will discuss her work at a conversation and book launch event on February 23 at 6:00 p.m. in the gallery. Thoron and Ibe launched their collaboration with Betts on Felon: An American Washi Tale in 2020.
Thoron works cross-culturally within the United States and abroad developing new work. Her productions incorporate the work of fine artists, musicians, poets, and are often performed in multiple languages. Thoron is also co-founding artistic director of the highly successful theater literacy program Literature to Life, now in its third decade nationwide, adapting books into verbatim solo performances with facilitated discussion and workshops to spark a passion for reading in young people.
The series of events around University performances of Felon: An American Washi Tale is organized by Director of the Program in Theater Jane Cox, a Tony Award-nominated lighting designer and lighting designer for Felon. Cox invited Betts and Thoron to develop Felon at the Wallace Theater on campus in summer 2021. The production has since begun touring around the country to correctional facilities and universities. The Princeton production serves as a central focus for many collaborations and conversations around social justice and incarceration and will be a significant collective event for several communities. Among the many collaborators and partners on campus are the Department of Art and Archaeology, the Office of the Vice President for Campus Life, the University Center for Human Values, the School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University Library, Campus Conversation on Identities, the Humanities Council, Students for Prison Education, Abolition and Reform (SPEAR), the faculty and staff of The Prison Teaching Initiative, McCarter Theatre, and Trenton Arts at Princeton. Other outreach partners include the Trenton Public Library, Princeton Public Library, Roundabout Workforce Development Program, and the Fortune Society.
Princeton faculty member Tess James is co-designing the lighting with Cox for the Princeton production with sound design by Tony Award-nominated sound designer and composer Palmer Hefferan and stage management by Freedom Reads’ Tyler Sperrazza.
Prior to the Saturday performance, Princeton faculty member Chesney Snow, a Town Hall theater teaching artist who originated and facilitates Storyteller’s Lab, will conduct theater-making workshops with high school students in the Princeton University Preparatory Program, Trenton high school students in the Trenton Arts at Princeton program Trenton Youth Theater, students of the Fortune Society, and students of Princeton’s own SPEAR group. Storyteller’s Lab is a program offered by The Town Hall’s Education Department in partnership with The Fortune Society.
“Felon: An American Washi Tale is an example of what theater does best,” said Cox. “It is serving as a way to bring people together around issues that affect us all; it is acting as a focal point for community conversations and collaborations (on campus and off); and the performance explores and humanizes significant contemporary injustices. We are particularly excited that this project has allowed our faculty, students, and staff to enter into relationships with many other campus units and departments, as well as work side by side with justice-impacted communities and many other off campus communities.”
Tickets for Felon: An American Washi Tale are $12 in advance of show dates, $17 purchased the day of performances at the box office, and free for Princeton students. Tickets are available to purchase online through McCarter Box Office.
Visit the Felon at Princeton page to learn more about Princeton’s presentation of Felon: An American Washi Tale, the development of the project, and related events at Princeton during March 2 though 4.
All visitors to Princeton University are expected to be either fully vaccinated, have recently received and be prepared to show proof of a negative COVID test (via PCR within 72 hours or via rapid antigen within 8 hours of the scheduled visit), or agree to wear a face covering when indoors and around others.
Visit the Lewis Center website to learn more about the more than 100 public performances, exhibitions, readings, screenings, concerts, lectures, and special events, most of them free, presented each year by the Lewis Center for the Arts.
