Alone in solitary confinement, a teenager called out: “Somebody, send me a book!”
Moments later, Dudley Randall’s The Black Poets slid under his cell door. Those pages were the start of the teen’s transformation into a poet, lawyer, and promoter of the rights of prisoners. Now, 20 years to the day of his release from prison on March 4, 2005, Reginald Dwayne Betts explores the experience and consequences of his incarceration in a compelling new solo performance based on his American Book Award-winning poetry collection, Felon: An American Washi Tale, with conversation to follow.
Betts, a MacArthur “Genius” Fellow and founder of the nonprofit organization, Freedom Reads, brings his story on the importance of mercy, the realities of life after prison, and the role art and literature can play in the fight for justice to the PAC NYC stage.
Photo: Jon Sweeney
Elise Thoron – Director, Developer & Dramaturg
Jane Cox – Lighting Designer
Kyoko Ibe – Set Designer
Palmer Hefferan – Sound Designer
Louisa Bertman – Animation
Tyler Sperrazza – Production Stage Manager & Technical Director
Michael Byrd – Assistant Stage Manager
Ruth Lingen – Prison Papermaker
MASS Design Group; Shannon Velázquez & Dan Velázquez – Freedom Reads Bookshelves
David Bengali – Projection Consultant
Chesney Snow – Movement Consultant
This production includes strong language.
Reginald Dwayne Betts
Reginald Dwayne Betts is a poet and lawyer. A 2021 MacArthur Fellow, he is the Executive Director of Freedom Reads, a not-for-profit organization that is radically transforming the access to literature in prisons through the installation of Freedom Libraries in prisons across this country.
For more than twenty years, he has used his poetry and essays to explore the world of prison and the effects of violence and incarceration on American society. The author of a memoir and three collections of poetry, he has transformed his latest collection of poetry, the American Book Award-winning Felon, into a solo theater show that explores the post incarceration experience and lingering consequences of a criminal record through poetry, stories, and engaging with the timeless and transcendental art of paper-making.
In 2019, Betts won the National Magazine Award in the Essays and Criticism category for his NY Times Magazine essay that chronicles his journey from prison to becoming a licensed attorney. He has been awarded a Radcliffe Fellowship from Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Study, a Guggenheim Fellowship, an Emerson Fellow at New America, and most recently a Civil Society Fellow at Aspen. Betts holds a J.D. from Yale Law School.
