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Kevin Bott, a master’s student at NYU, is invited to observe professor Philip Taylor facilitate an applied theater process at Woodbourne Correctional Facility, a New York State prison. Unbeknownst to him, the direction of his life changes that night!
Kevin is the director of education for the prison arts non-profit, Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA), and a doctoral student at NYU. But his enthusiasm for the work behind bars has flagged. He cares deeply about the issue and about the people he’s met inside, but he’s an inventor at heart and he wants to create something new. One night at Greenhaven Correctional, one of the actors tells Kevin that he’s “made the board,” meaning the parole board has granted his release. Explaining how theater changed his life, he asks Kevin what opportunities exist for returning citizens back in New York City. Kevin discovers there is virtually no theater for, with, or by returning citizens (at the time referred to most commonly as “formerly incarcerated people”), so he sets out to figure out what such a theater could look like.
Having immersed himself in the issue of prisoner reentry, Kevin embraces a body of criminological literature proposing the power of ritual and rites of passage as tools for reintegrating returning citizens back into the community… His doctoral research will focus on a theatrical devising project that he’s invented through which a group of returning citizens will work together over the course of a semester to create their own homecoming rite of passage. He meets his first participant at a reentry event hosted by Columbia University. The man’s name is Alexander Anderson.
After 12 weeks, the first iteration of the project takes place in a theatrically transformed classroom at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in NYC. Five men enact the ritual they worked together to create, in front of an audience of about 100 family members, loved ones, and other members of the community. They call it “a ritual for return.” It’s a powerful night for all and gives everyone the idea that we could be on to something!
Despite the success of the project, momentum was halted by… well… life!
Kevin got an academic job offer in Syracuse, New York. With a young family to support, he accepted the offer and moved 7 hours away from NYC…
Alex, feeling transformed by his experience in R4R, dove deep into his life as a social worker, both within institutions but also with a new, day-to-day commitment to supporting other people coming home from prison…
Though both thought about the ritual often, the men lost touch completely. Kevin applied unsuccesfully for a few Soros Justice Fellowships, trying to jump start the project. With no funding on the horizon, he worked on other projects, always hoping to one day return to his reentry work.
Academic life brought Kevin back to New York City. Staten Island to be exact, where he was hired at Wagner College to be dean for civic engagement — a role, it turns out, he was wholly unsuited for.
Restless and miserable at work, Kevin started applying for funding again. And finally, something clicked! He applied for and received a $5,000 matching grant from Humanities New York. The name of the new project: the more stylized, Ritual4Return.
At the same time, Kevin was introduced to Tom Oppenheim, artistic director and president of the Stella Adler Studio of Acting. Tom had been sending theater teachers and actors onto Riker’s Island for a number of years and felt R4R resonated with his justice goals. He offered to donate space and resources to the new iteration of the project.
Alex is burnt out on institutional social work, feeling like he doesn’t have a space to affect people in a positive way. He feels oppressed and victimized by white-led institutions.
Kevin feels like R4R needs a resident social worker, and he calls Alex out of the blue after 10 years. They excitedly agree to partner on this new opportunity.
Almost 10 years to the day since it first launched, R4R rises from the ashes. Five more men go through the 12-week process and enact their rite of passage at a black box theater at Stella Adler Studio of Acting.
And wow! Does this ever feel like a traditional rite of passage! We’ll skip the ugly details and let it suffice to say that it lasts almost 5 hours — with no intermission!
The hardest thing about R4R is that it’s an attempt to create a new cultural ritual. But there’s no roadmap and, like a wedding, you only get one shot at it! We’re learning more each time we go through it. And yes! We learn A LOT on this one!
For the first time, R4R stages a rite of passage for women. Also for the first (and so far, only) time, R4R has a full cohort of 12 participants!
The women bring a wholly different, and wonderful, energy to the project.
We’re looking with excitement to 2020!
What could stop us now?
We’re about 4 weeks into our next men’s cohort when the world shuts down for Covid.
It all just… stops.
The national racial reckoning that emerges in the wake of the George Floyd and Breonna Taylor murders cause both Alex and Kevin to reflect on their own relationship and on the unspoken power dynamics within it. They decide they need a break from each other.
Alex continues working by Zoom with one of the men from the previous project. Later in 2020, he forms his own organization, The Reentry Theater of Harlem (RTH) and utilizes and reinterprets what he learned in R4R to support justice-impacted men and women.
Kevin doesn’t know anymore what his role is supposed to be in the project. He invented it; shouldn’t he have a role? Or, as a white man who never served time, should he hand over what he knows and walk away? He thinks maybe he should write a book about the work and exit stage left. He has a book proposal accepted by a publishing house and then… doesn’t write the book. He’s kind of lost…
Alex continues his work, both at Stella Adler Studio of Acting and with RTH.
Kevin is hired by Rutgers University in New Brunswick, New Jersey, and — settled once again — begins dreaming of bringing R4R back to life — now in his home state. As director of online learning at Rutgers, he wonders if there might be an online learning component to the project. Could participants receive college credit??
Through connections at Rutgers-Newark, Kevin is introduced to Edwin “Chino” Ortiz, Chino’s brother, Carmelo, and their lifelong friend, Al-Tariq Witcher, co-founders of Returning Citizens Support Group (RCSG), an organization they founded as a support network for returning citizens. Between them, the three men had served a combined 80 years inside NJ state prisons!
Chino, the executive director, is committed to “changing the narrative” about returning citizens so when he hears Kevin’s ideas, it’s a perfect match. Kevin begins attending RCSG’s weekly support group meeting, and dropping some seeds about R4R. And in the meantime, he’s looking for funding opportunities.
Alex and Kevin have barely spoken through the pandemic. But they reunite at the Stella Adler Studio at what Alex and Tom Oppenheim are calling a Ritual4Return event. It’s a play Alex’s group has staged to bring awareness to the life and plight of a death-row inmate in Arkansas.
The reunion is a pleasant one. Kevin lets Alex know what’s cooking (potentially) across the river in Newark.
Kevin loves his home state, and he’s convinced that the strong bonds amongst the men at RCSG in Newark will bring something to R4R that’s not yet been seen.
Under the umbrella of RCSG’s 501(c)3 status, Kevin gets a $15,000 matching grant from New Jersey Council for the Humanities to pilot two R4R projects in Newark — one for men in fall 2023, and one for women in spring 2024.
New Jersey Performing Arts Center gives a significant in-kind donation, which allows us to use their space in downtown Newark. Our December 2023 event will be in the NJPAC black box.
Ahavas Sholom synagogue, the last active synagogue in Newark, donates rehearsal space as well.
Alex is on back on board, as resident social worker and teaching artist.
Kevin and Alex fall in love with the city of Newark!
Ten men are participating in this cohort, the most men we’ve ever had. Nine of the 10 have each spent 30 years in prison. The other person spent 20 years inside. Some will be on parole the rest of their lives despite being septuagenarians who are — statistically speaking — HIGHLY unlikely to ever commit another crime.
Alex and Kevin meet the men once a week. The rite of passage is scheduled for December 10 at NJPAC. For the first time, we’ll use our grant money to host a pre-event gathering and workshop for audience members so that they are introduced to the concepts and themes of the project before it begins. It’s an exciting time!
Eight men cross the threshold in Newark on December 10, 2023. It’s the most realized version of R4R to date, complete with a pre-event community workshop and a post-ritual community dinner and celebration. (And guess who showed up? Michelle Alexander! — author, “The New Jim Crow” — who said she and her husband were “blown away” by what they experienced!)
And just six weeks later, on January 28, 2024, we begin a new cohort — our second group of women to begin the R4R process.
There’s a lot of smoke right now — lots of people and institutions saying they want to support this work. We’re excited to see where these conversations lead!
One more thing. One of our workshop partners and volunteers in Newark is esteemed classicist, Emily Allen-Hornblower. With her help, we cast off our old Roman mantra, Incipimus, and replace it with what it always should have been — the Ancient Greek:
Archomen!
We Begin! (again)
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