Telling My Story breaks down walls between socially isolated individuals and their communities using theater as a medium for social reflection and relationship building. Our programs develop self-awareness and communication skills with populations behind visible and invisible social walls — such as those created by incarceration, addiction, and poverty.
Almost all Telling My Story participants have had a hand in creating Talking Walls that serve as the backdrop to each performance. Similar to a graffiti wall, the Talking Wall allows for expression of words, thoughts, and ideas that help participants communicate their experiences. We are working as an organization to mount a traveling exhibit [...]
Telling My Story was the light at the end of the tunnel for me while I was incarcerated. When I got out I had meetings and groups for a period of time, but the farther I got from incarceration and treatment, the less I talked about it. I talked about hard things with my personal [...]
On December 15th I will be traveling to Chile to reproduce the Telling My Story program there for the first time. I will be implementing the program at a women’s prison in Santiago. My cousin and close friend has been helping to organize this project in Santiago, and I am so impressed and moved by [...]
Telling My Story celebrates its first year as an independent nonprofit organization this month! We thought you might be interested in the work we do. A giant THANK YOU to everyone who has made this year such a success. To celebrate, we want to fill you in on what is coming up, and to ask [...]
Pati has been invited to participate in a two-week artists residency focused on prison issues at the Blue Mountain Center in New York State. Fifteen artists were invited to share their work related to incarceration, the prison system, and inmates and their stories. Pati will spend her time developing a facilitator’s handbook for Telling My [...]
Hope in Despair: Life on Life’s Terms began with 16 Dartmouth students, two professors, and about 20 female residents of the Valley Vista Rehabilitation Center walking to the front of a room and introducing themselves to each other by saying their names, where they were from, a like, and a dislike. Initially, we came together [...]
Telling My Story is a great program that has inspired me — and many women like me. I have participated in many programs while in prison, but not many have empowered me with such direction in my life. Telling My Story helped me to understand what my voice and others can do to have a [...]
I am just back from a very exciting and productive winter reproducing Telling My Story in Puerto Rico. I spent eight weeks at Guayama 945, a men’s correctional facility in the south of the island. During the project I worked with 16 inmates and 11 volunteers from the outside. The show was called Tell Me [...]
