{"id":132618,"date":"2026-01-14T03:20:34","date_gmt":"2026-01-14T03:20:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/132618\/"},"modified":"2026-01-14T03:20:34","modified_gmt":"2026-01-14T03:20:34","slug":"voices-of-reentry-take-the-stage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/132618\/","title":{"rendered":"Voices of reentry take the stage"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is beyond uplifting to begin a new year with a sliver of good news. Cutting through the terror, trivia, intense political disarray and other significant clutter is the Formerly Incarcerated People\u2019s Performance Project<\/a>\u2019s (FIPPP) continuation as Berkeley Repertory Theatre<\/a>\u2019s company-in-residence.<\/p>\n

Founded in 2020, FIPPP develops and presents solo performance stories by formerly incarcerated people. After presenting festivals in 2021 and 2023, and offering workshops and special events in 2022, the East Bay nonprofit embarked on a three-year residency with the nationally lauded theater company.<\/p>\n

In 2026, the culmination of their relationship is a four-day festival on Jan. 15-18<\/a>. Five different shows feature solo performances by 12 formerly incarcerated people. Helming the program are Berkeley Rep School of Theatre director Anthony Jackson and FIPPP co-founder and producer Mark Kenward. Kenward is a highly visible, award-winning actor\/director of 40 full-length solo shows in the San Francisco theater scene.<\/p>\n

FIPPP\u2019s co-founders are Rebecca Fisher, Wayne Harris and Mark McGoldrick. Guest coaches include Candace Johnson, Dan Hoyle and Dylan Russell. The tiny troupe launched six years ago now has eight professional theater directors on the artistic team and 15 formerly incarcerated performers.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s festival also includes short films by documentary filmmaker Jim Granato. Three moderated panel discussions feature performers interacting post-show with each other and audience members.<\/p>\n

FIPPP performers range from veterans of the stage\u2014stand-up comedians, TEDx speakers, Moth winners, Shakespearean actors and more\u2014to storytellers with new, freshly minted voices. Each individual speaks with clear intention, sharing prison and post-prison experiences and realities. The stories reveal hard-won success, reinvention and rise-above initiative in the face of opposing forces. Which means their stories are also filled with sobering truths about prison life and obstacles to reentry, such as substance abuse, homelessness, societal stigmas and more.<\/p>\n

Performer Scott Schell was arrested in 1998 for grand theft. He began his recovery in the San Francisco Sheriff\u2019s Department Resolve to Stop the Violence Project and eventually became its program manager.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese stories need to be told,\u201d Schell said in an email. \u201cMost people don\u2019t know what it\u2019s like to be incarcerated and how people are treated. It\u2019s about giving back folks\u2019 humanity, \u2019cause a lot of that gets taken away when you\u2019re incarcerated. You\u2019re just seen as an inmate, so the humanity is gone. I see beyond the orange suit. I see an old man, a young child that\u2019s asking for help. That\u2019s what I see. We\u2019re giving voice to people who don\u2019t have a voice, and we\u2019re sharing what we went through with other people so they can get some perspective. You\u2019re going to hear some stuff that\u2019s hard to hear, but necessary to listen to.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kenward said in a phone interview that FIPPP was fortuitously \u201csaved\u201d by Berkeley Rep in 2023. \u201cWe do events at PianoFight, and it\u2019s been a hard time for theaters,\u201d he said. \u201cThey went belly-up, and we had the Rep partnership already in place. They gave us a home when other theaters were closing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jackson said Berkeley Rep gains as much through the association as does FIPPP. \u201cThe amplification of marginalized or disenfranchised voices and making them part of our community is important,\u201d he said. \u201cOur programs need to reach out to audiences with stories that happen every day and that people aren\u2019t familiar with. To hear and connect to them\u2014we benefit from having diversified our teaching staff, and morale is lifted up as we learn about their journeys. Their stories bring these stories into the context of the real world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jackson said the stories that hit forcibly and stick with him are narratives that align with his personal experiences. As someone with a family member who\u2019d been incarcerated, he said, \u201cOne thing that stuck with me is how hard it is to reenter. There are stigmas\u2014and the hoops they have to jump through to be a part of society are just hard. FIPPP makes those stories accessible, and teaches us to have compassion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kenward knows each performer well, and spoke about four of the storytellers to demonstrate the festival\u2019s diversity of style, content and talent. He said Christina Aanestad is a prime example of someone people hear every day in her position as KPFA\u2019s morning news anchor, but have no idea about her past.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe came to us with a lot of writing experience, but new to the stage,\u201d Kenward said. \u201cShe comes out of the local club scene, so candor is in her work. She\u2019s not afraid to be bold.\u201d<\/p>\n

Algin Ford has a wealth of onstage experience and offers \u201cflights of poetry, bursts of dialogue that lay out two or more vivid characters and strong, precise language.\u201d Tony Clip is a dazzling, big-hearted performer who can \u201cconjure up all the people he met in prison\u201d and has the audience \u201crooting for him and going for the ride from the beginning.\u201d And TedX speaker Gerald Cypert speaks his truth with an emotional vulnerability and steely honesty that \u201ccuts like a knife and reflects like a mirror.\u201d<\/p>\n

Panel discussions will touch on gang affiliation, violence, race, gender and the hardships of reentry that include getting finances in order, finding employment, building a supportive community and more.<\/p>\n

About the future of their partnership, Jackson says he hopes FIPPP artists continue to create new work, teach and partner with theater education programs, and in all ways continue to share their undersold stories in the community.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It is beyond uplifting to begin a new year with a sliver of good news. Cutting through the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":132619,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[2226,15011,143,145,144],"class_list":["post-132618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-oakland","tag-berkeley-rep","tag-local-theater","tag-oakland","tag-oakland-headlines","tag-oakland-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=132618"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/132618\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/132619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=132618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=132618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=132618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}