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The Brown Creek Life Review Performance Project
Performance Participant at Brown Creek
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The Brown Creek Life Review Performance Project grew out of a unique collaboration
between the Southern Oral History Program, Anson Community College (ACC) in Polkton,
North Carolina, and Brown Creek Correctional Institution (BCCI), an all-male,
800-inmate medium-security prison in Anson County. The project took shape in
1996 when Winnie M. Bennett asked SOHP scholars Alicia
J. Rouverol and Kathryn
Walbert to hold a series of oral history workshops in Anson County
as part of her North Carolina Humanities Council-funded project "Building
Community Through Poetry, History and Art." During an initial workshop at
BCCI, inmates took a keen interest in oral history and quickly grasped its value
in their own lives. Several inmates suggested that by drawing attention to the
experiences that led them to BCCI, the telling of their stories might influence
at-risk youth in local communities. Rouverol encouraged the inmates to consider
developing an oral history-based performance similar to the SOHP's "Performing
Women's Leadership."
Alicia Rouverol at Brown Creek
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With further support from the North Carolina Humanities Council and the
SOHP's "Listening for a Change" initiative, the Brown Creek
Life Review Performance project took place under the auspices of BCCI's
continuing education program during the spring and fall of 1998. Rouverol
co-taught the first course with ACC faculty member Mark-Anthony Hines,
organizing sessions around the concept of "life review" - the
process by which individuals at key junctures in their lives review and
assess their past. Inmates participated in a series of taped group life
review storytelling sessions that focused on topics ranging from family
background and childhood to young adulthood and the experience of coming
to Brown Creek. Using the transcripts and their own writings, the inmates
then developed a script in collaboration with Rouverol, community theater
director Marlene Richardson, and ACC's Head of Correctional Education
Joe Madaras. In March 1999, the inmates participated in two original
performances of "Leaves of Magnolia: The Brown Creek Life Review
Performance Project" for prison administration and ACC administration
and staff.
Post-Performance Celebration at Brown Creek
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Rouverol is currently seeking grant support for the project's final phase:
bringing at-risk youth to view the performance in the hope that hearing
the inmates' narratives can positively influence their lives. Rouverol
and the SOHP staff hope that the Brown Creek Life Review Performance
Project will serve as a model for oral historians interested in using
the life review process in their work. Through documenting the lives
of BCCI inmates, the SOHP has also generated resource materials that
will be important to scholars conducting future research on the prison
experience in North Carolina during the 1990s.
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