Arts and Well-Being, Part Four: How Maine Inside Out Uses Theater To Drive Social Change

For the past decade, we’ve worked with various arts organizations across Maine, and we’ve witnessed the incredible impact they’ve had on individuals and communities. These organizations help build kids’ confidence, give unhoused individuals a safe space to express themselves, reimagine artistic traditions, and so much more.

It’s these organizations that have inspired our arts and well-being article series, which kicked off with an overview of the research on the profound physical, mental, and communal impact of the arts.

Now, we’re spotlighting a group that works endlessly to help system-impacted youth realize these benefits: Maine Inside Out (MIO). MIO was founded in 2008 to give incarcerated artists in the juvenile correctional system an opportunity to explore their situations and emotions through theater. Since then, the team has expanded their work to schools and communities in the Lewiston and Portland areas. And as they work to address new and evolving youth needs in the coming years, they’re dedicated to forging creative pathways for even more Mainers.

Pulling Back the Curtain on the Incarceration System

According to Molly Gallagher Burk, MIO’s philanthropy lead, the organization was developed to promote change for those impacted by the U.S. incarceration system — people often left out of traditional arts initiatives. “We’re engaging system-involved people and communities and offering peer support, building leadership, and cultivating dialogue for social change using theater and art,” Burk says.

To drive such an impact, the MIO team works directly with incarcerated individuals in facilities such as Mountain View Correctional Center to create and perform play productions, many of which focus on the lived experience of being in prison. But the organization has expanded in recent years to focus on schools and families in the broader community as well.

“MIO’s been built over the years around the relationships that we started at the beginning and have maintained,” says Burk. “We’ve grown with individuals who we worked with as kids, supported through reentry, and now employ as staff or contracted artists.”

Each theater production process follows similar steps:

• The MIO team works hard to create a trusted space and strong relationships with participants

• They then use that space to encourage participants to explore their background, emotions, and interests

• Participants list potential topics to focus on and work with MIP to write a storyline and script for their play

• The team facilitates community or prison-based productions where participants can share their work

MIO derived this process from the “theater of the oppressed” model, which Brazilian playwright Augusto Boal created in the 1970s. The core tenets of the model include giving participants a safe, accessible space to explore their lived experiences and initiate community dialogue about larger social conditions.

“Using this theater methodology to provide young people with platforms in the community to talk about what’s going on with them will hopefully deter them from having system contact,” says Joseph Jackson, MIO’s co-executive director and director of community programs. “It also empowers decision-makers to make policies that impact those young people.”

Connecting the Inside and Outside Worlds

MIO offers community theater to spark critical thinking and discussion around the current state of the U.S. carceral system. “It’s been a wonderful way of talking about social issues and systems of oppression that normally get defined only with statistics,” says Jackson. “Now, we’re actually sharing stories.”

The programming also forges deep connections. At Lewiston Middle School, for example, one young member of the MIO theater program happened to have a brother in incarceration who also worked with with the organization. The MIO team secured visitation rights — something the family had historically been unable to do due to language barriers — so the whole family could see their loved one’s play. “It was one of the most beautiful performances that we’ve seen, with this person being able to share their work with their family,” says Jackson.

Burk reports that these kinds of inside/outside connections are central to MIO’s work. “There’s so much separation that happens in our communities,” says Burk. “MIO is there to create open pathways and connections with people who have been separated from their support systems and communities.”

In fact, the team continues to provide peer support and artistic opportunities for incarcerated individuals even after theater programs end. They record and incorporate vocals from incarcerated artists who aren’t able to participate in community performances. And they recently released an album to continue shining a light on those voices.

Compassion, Connection, and Community

Jackson, Burk, and their team frequently work with young people who are struggling with their schoolwork or having trouble staying in school. MIO theater works as a catalyst for motivating these students to identify their academic interests and participate more actively in schoolwork.

These students also often develop pride in their creative work, Jackson says, inviting their friends to watch their performances — and sometimes even encouraging others to participate. This sense of leadership and courage is amplified by the topics students choose to write about. “They’re on stage having conversations about things that aren’t easy to talk about,” says Burk. “But they’re in a position to have a leadership role in those conversations and face challenges in different ways after going through those tough situations.”

The Maine Inside Out program has also enabled participants to extend their social networks and connect with other burgeoning artists. “We’ve gotten incredible feedback about the way they’re able to feel connected with the group as they express themselves artistically,” Burk says.

It’s a high level of newfound respect that creates a productive feedback loop: Young MIO participants feel like their artistic work is worthwhile, so they feel more encouraged to try new things and build new connections with others. That connection then cultivates a safe space for creative and cathartic exploration with peers who have had similar life experiences. Participants feel seen and heard — possibly for the first time. “We hear them say, ‘this is the first time I’ve been seen in a different light in my community,’” Jackson says.

Community Theater for All

Like Maine Inside Out theater participants, the organization’s staff also finds empowerment and deep connections in this work. “They’ve never had a job like this before that takes into account who they are as individuals and where they are in their lives,” says Jackson.

Burk agrees: “MIO is so unique in the way it creates places in which you, as a whole person, are completely respected in your role for all the things that you are. People can be themselves. There’s a shared purpose around supporting people.”

Going forward, the team is set on building capacity to expand their theater programming even further. They’re focused on deep strategy work and meeting the significant need for arts programming in prison facilities, juvenile detention centers, and schools across Maine.

Even in the midst of this larger strategic work, though, the MIO team continues the on-the-ground work of forging safe, creative spaces for those who need them most. “A lot of people don’t feel belonging in their communities, and MIO is completely an antidote to that,” Burk says. “We want people to feel like they belong here and are an important part of this community — because they are.”