It'€™s all too easy to picture the US prison population as a big homogenous mass of people living in identical cells all over the country. In fact, the US prison population is a lot more complicated than that. It’s a large, bewilderingly complex cultural dynamic that forms a living part of the bigger population. When people leave the prison system, they are still very much a part of it. Their lives are explored in Castle--a touring spoken word performance program organized by The Fortune Society. The Society is a New York-based non-profit that helps people adjust to life after incarceration.
The four-member cast of The Castle makes it to Milwaukee on Saturday, April 9th. The four have served a combined 70 years of life behind bars for convictions ranging from narcotics to murder. In language that Variety had called “Profoundly eloquent,†the four speak of trying to adjust to life outside of prison in a way that adds to the dialogue about how society and the prison system.
The Castle will perform April 9th at 7:30 pm at UWM’s Zelazo Center on 2419 East Kenwood. There is no charge for admission.
