Some stories you live. Then you tell the tale.
Playwright, ethnographer and performer Ashley Lucas
began work on Doin’ Time, her one-person show in the Solo Takes On festival, when her father was denied parole by the Texas prison system in the summer of 2003.
In a 2008 interview, she said, “When I was brave enough to come out and say, ‘I am a child of a prisoner,’ I was overwhelmed by the number of people who came to me wanting to share their stories as they, too, were in similar situations.”
Lucas corresponded with over 400 prisoners from across the country, interviewing family members of prisoners, former prisoners, and workers in prisons and prison activism in California, Texas and New York. Out of those stories and her own experiences, she has created ‘a harshly realistic perspective of the desperation of the prisoners and of the families they leave behind — rendering the families of prisoners innocent refugees and forgotten victims of the prison system.”
Performances for Doin’ Time are this Sunday, Nov. 15, at 3 p.m., next Saturday, Nov. 21, at 5 p.m. and next Sunday, Nov. 22, at 3 p.m. All performances are in UNC’s Swain Hall. Tickets are $10 / $5.
