• The Actors' Gang, under the leadership of Artistic Director Tim Robbins, has provided theater arts programming with an emphasis on Commedia dell'Arte techniques for more than a decade. The Prison Project team works to facilitate highly physical, emotional, ensemble-based theater workshops through weekly as well as seven-day intensive sessions. The work endeavors to unlock the vast human potential of the inmates. Classes allow the participants to address and begin to heal their trauma, and learn to manage their emotions in a productive way.
• Facilities served: California Institution for Men; California Institution for Women; California State Prison, Sacramento; California Rehabilitation Center; Ironwood State Prison
• The Alliance for California Traditional Arts provides arts programming focused on the vast and underserved field of traditional arts, rooted in cultural heritage and community-based practice. The expressions of Native American beadwork, storytelling, songwriting, African drumming, and American folk guitar and guitarra ranchera are intended as familiar and culturally relevant art forms for participants.
• Facilities served: Avenal State Prison; California City Correctional Facility; California Correctional Institution; California Institution for Men; California Institution for Women; California Rehabilitation Center; California State Prison, Corcoran; California State Prison, Los Angeles County; Central California Women's Facility; Correctional Training Facility; Chuckawalla Valley State Prison; Ironwood State Prison; Pleasant Valley State Prison;
Salinas Valley State Prison; Substance Abuse Treatment Facility and State Prison, Corcoran; Valley State Prison
• Dance Kaiso provides residencies in Afro-Caribbean dance. Teaching artists conduct Caribbean drum, percussion and dance classes taught in a geographical, historical and cultural context, culminating in a final presentation.
•Facilities served: Correctional Training Facility, Salinas Valley State Prison
• Local arts agency Fresno Arts Council values the role the arts play in all communities, believing in the benefits of increased self-awareness and success from participating in arts programming. The Council provides visual arts, music and storytelling instruction in California state correctional institutions.
• Facilities served: Avenal State Prison; California State Prison, Corcoran; Pleasant Valley State Prison; Substance Abuse Treatment Facility and State Prison, Corcoran
• Built on the success of their San Quentin Radio project, KALW will produce a nine-day audio journalism and engineering training program. A team of radio professionals and their equipment will help inmates build skills and share their stories about their experiences. Curriculum will include training in conceiving stories, pitching stories to editors, developing outlines and plans for putting together stories, sound recording, interviewing, transcribing, writing, rewriting, working with an editor, voicing stories, working with digital editing software, and enhancing stories with music or other sound.
• Facilities served: California State Prison, Solano; San Quentin State Prison
• The Arts Council of Kern offers a variety of classes in a range of disciplines. Poetry students learn to speak more freely and present original and existing spoken word pieces, visual arts students learn the fundamental of painting and drawing, and music programs teach the skills necessary for beginner's guitar or ukulele. All programs culminate in a final project or performance.
• Facilities served: Kern Valley State Prison, North Kern State Prison, Wasco State Prison
• InsideOUT uses creative writing as a catalyst for personal transformation in numerous correctional facilities in Southern California. Professional writers will provide creative writing and literary arts programming.
• Facilities served: California City Correctional Facility, California Correctional Institution, Chuckawalla Valley State Prison, Kern Valley State Prison, Ironwood State Prison
• The Marin Shakespeare Company has 14 years' experience providing programs in California state prisons, inspiring inmates and shedding light on their great potential. The company's curriculum incorporates drama therapy techniques, Shakespeare study and performance, and the creation of autobiographical theater by inmates. Classes include check-ins designed to encourage self-reflection, skill-building exercises to encourage creativity, study of Shakespeare and how the themes from the plays relate to our own lives, and small group decision-making exercises designed to allow for the practice of conflict resolution. The program will culminate in a final performance of a Shakespeare play with costumes and props.
• Facilities served: California Health Care Facility; California Medical Facility; California State Prison, Solano; Deuel Vocational Institution; Folsom State Prison; High Desert State Prison; San Quentin State Prison
• Serving the at-risk and underserved members of our community has become the mission of the Muck's expanding arts education outreach program. Through Arts in Corrections, Muckenthaler will provide intensive, mini-residencies at correctional facilities, with four artists offering instruction in visual arts, hip-hop dance, storytelling and music, focusing
on traditional Yoruban rhythms.
• Facilities served: California Rehabilitation Center
• Formed in 1992, Red Ladder Theatre Company has a long-standing history of serving incarcerated populations, using the tools and techniques of improvisational theater to help its participants develop positive life skills. Guided by Red Ladder Company members, participants are encouraged to examine and solve the issues and problems that affect and often derail their lives. Through the tools and techniques of improvisational theater, participants are able to safely come to terms with, and triumph over, the forces that hamper their lives while also actively developing their abilities to make positive choices, solve problems creatively, focus on tasks, work collaboratively, learn from their mistakes, and develop leadership and self-esteem.
• Facilities served: California Health Care Facility; Central California Women's Facility; Correctional Training Facility; Deuel Vocational Institution; Folsom State Prison; Folsom Women's Facility; Salinas Valley State Prison; Valley State Prison
• The Riverside Arts Council will offer sessions in contemporary and Shakespearean theater, incorporating exercises involving movement, voice, storytelling, improvisation, scene study and character development. Culminating performances conclude each session. Within the framework of this program is an underlying therapeutic value. The performance of
these projects leads to a sense of accomplishment and pride.
• Facilities served: California Rehabilitation Center, California Institution for Men, California Institution for Women
• The William James Association has a 40-year history of developing, managing and funding multi-disciplinary fine arts programs for incarcerated and at-risk individuals, working with organizations from the National Endowment for the Arts to the Santa Cruz County Sheriff's Office to provide fine arts services in correctional settings. WJA will provide Arts in Corrections programming spanning the fields of music, visual arts, theater, and writing.
• Facilities served: California Correctional Center; California Institution for Men; California Institution for Women; California Medical Facility; California Men's Colony; California Rehabilitation Center; Centinela State Prison; California State Prison, Solano; High Desert State Prison; Mule Creek State Prison; Pelican Bay State Prison; Richard J. Donovan
Correctional Facility; San Quentin State Prison; Sierra Conservation Center
CDCR Contact: Krissi Khokhobashvili, (916) 445-4950
Arts Council Contact: Kimberly Brown, (916) 322-6413
