Written by Sophia

Sometimes the biggest moments in rehearsal happen before we even open the script.

We arrived at the programs building around 6:00 to a relatively small group. As we settled in, one ensemble member casually announced that she wanted to read King Lear that night.

I was thrilled.

For the past few years, she had been gravitating toward smaller roles, often hesitant to put herself out there. The ensemble had been encouraging her to try something bigger, and she always denied. Last week, she accepted a nomination to read King Lear and enjoyed it. Now, without anyone having to convince her, she was volunteering to take on the title character.

“I want to branch out,” she told me. “I just get nervous in front of everyone.”

I don’t think she realized how exciting that was for me to hear. One of my favorite things about this work is watching ensemble members begin to recognize possibilities for themselves that they might not have considered before. Sometimes that looks like an incredible performance. Sometimes it looks like someone simply deciding they’re ready to try.

As more members arrived, we checked in and settled into our question of the day: What has the ensemble taught you?

I didn’t expect the conversation to take up nearly half our evening or to reveal quite so much about what this group means to the people in it.

“Togetherness,” one participant offered.

“Everybody’s personalities,” another added.

Someone else expanded on that idea: “Coming together as one. Come together to do a show instead of judging each other.”

Then one of our veteran ensemble members shared something that stayed with me.

“This gives me two hours of peace and quiet and to feel like I’m not in prison,” she said. “There’s all this drama – we talk about Shakespeare. I love Shakespeare.”

I’ve heard ensemble members describe Shakespeare as an escape before, but I always find myself thinking about what that actually means. We aren’t changing where we are. We aren’t removing the circumstances of anyone’s life. But for a couple of hours, we’re choosing to spend our time making something together. The conversations are different. The relationships are different. There is room for laughter, creativity, disagreement, and discovery.

Another participant reflected on what she’d learned about being herself.

“It’s okay to be yourself,” she said. “Being wacky and expressing myself. I’m my worst critic. I think I could’ve done better but everyone is so supportive. I shouldn’t be so hard on myself.”

That idea of giving ourselves permission to be creative came up again when another ensemble member described rediscovering a part of herself she’d left behind.

“I learned that creativity is a powerful tool in this universe,” she said.

She explained that she had written poetry, performed in plays, and made music in high school. But after graduating, she began to believe those interests didn’t serve a purpose anymore, so she stopped pursuing them.

Being part of SIP changed the way she thought about that.

“Being here taught me the importance of creativity,” she reflected. “Everyone’s personality helped bring out that blossom.”

I loved the way she described it. Not that someone else gave her creativity, or that the program somehow created something that wasn’t already there. It was something she had always possessed. She had simply found a reason, and a community, to return to it.

That community was especially visible when two participants began talking about how a fellow ensemble member had encouraged them to try new things in her play for this past summer’s SIP & Beyond.

One shared, “She inspired me to rap. I worked for a year on it and she made me feel like I could do it.”

Another added, “She got me to sing. People still give me compliments.”

Their stories were such a wonderful reminder that so much of the learning in this room happens between ensemble members. They encourage each other, challenge each other, share their skills, and sometimes see potential in one another before the other person sees it herself.

One participant offered an analogy that I immediately wanted to turn into a theatre game.

“We’re a machine and every one of us has a part in it.”

I told the group about an ensemble exercise where everyone contributes a movement and sound until they’ve created one enormous, functioning machine. We’ll have to try it soon.

But the reflection that perhaps affected me most came from a participant who shared that she’d recently been asked to identify the things that had redefined her purpose.

Shakespeare was one of her answers.

“When you spend your whole life caring for other people, you forget your own happiness,” she explained. “Happiness needs to be a purpose. Shakespeare brings me happiness.”

So often, conversations about prison arts programs focus on what participants are supposed to gain from them: skills, confidence, discipline, rehabilitation, transformation. Those things may be part of someone’s experience, but I think we sometimes overlook the value of simply doing something because it brings us joy.

Happiness doesn’t have to be a byproduct of something more important. It can be the reason.

As we continued talking, Stefania shared that SIP had given her a community of women she hadn’t previously experienced in her life. I found myself agreeing with her. One ensemble member offered a more complicated reflection: “The women [in prison] don’t stick together. It would be a relief if we could.”

I think both things can be true. We can find meaningful community in this room while still recognizing how difficult it can be to sustain that same sense of connection outside of it. The ensemble isn’t free from conflict or frustration, but we keep returning to the work of being together.

Eventually, we shifted gears.

Kyle led us through an articulation warm-up using “Modern Major General,” which was just as challenging as you might imagine. A few ensemble members picked it up remarkably quickly, while the rest of us worked through the words together. By the end, Kyle was already excited about bringing in more articulation exercises.

Then we returned to King Lear.

Before jumping into Act 2, Scene 4, Kyle asked the group to recap what we’d read so far. Several ensemble members jumped in, piecing together the story and reminding each other of the important details.

Then Kyle asked a question that sparked a surprisingly lively debate: Why is Kent still following Lear?

After being banished, Kent disguises himself and returns to serve the very man who threatened his life. Why would anyone take that risk?

One participant wondered whether Cordelia had sent him back. Another suspected he had ulterior motives.

“I think it’s like family,” an ensemble member offered. “If you love and care for someone you’re going to stick up for them no matter what.”

She also proposed another possibility: “I think Lear has dementia.”

Others weren’t convinced Kent’s intentions were entirely selfless.

“He’s got ulterior motives,” one participant insisted. “What does he gain if he gets nothing?”

Kyle pushed back, suggesting that if Shakespeare wanted us to see Kent as someone scheming for personal gain, he might have written him more like Edmund.

Another participant had a different interpretation.

“He’s loyal to a fault,” she said.

She even went back to Act 1, Scene 1 to find evidence, reading from Kent’s farewell to Lear, Cordelia, General and Regan. The conversation reminded me how much more confident the ensemble is becoming in defending their interpretations. They’re no longer just asking what the text means. They’re forming arguments, returning to earlier scenes, and challenging each other’s ideas.

And then it was time to cast the scene.

The ensemble member who had announced at the beginning of the night that she wanted to branch out was ready to read Lear.

I was so excited for her.

We worked our way through Act 2, Scene 4, watching Lear confront the reality of what he has done. The king who divided his kingdom expecting to retain his authority is now bargaining with his daughters over how many attendants he can keep.

By the end of the scene, he is being stripped of more and more of the things that once represented his power.

When we finished reading, Stefania asked the group about the men Lear is fighting so desperately to keep. Why do they matter so much to him?

“Power,” someone offered.

“Stability.”

“Control.”

“He still needs protection,” another ensemble member added.

It was fascinating to hear how quickly the group recognized that Lear’s argument isn’t really just about the number of men accompanying him. It’s about what those men represent. His status, his independence, his sense of safety, and perhaps even his identity are all wrapped up in something his daughters now have the power to take away.

We’d spent the first half of the evening talking about what it means to find confidence, purpose, and community. Now we were reading about a man desperately trying to hold onto the things that make him feel important.

I couldn’t help noticing the contrast.

Lear seems unable to imagine himself without the power he once held. Meanwhile, the women sitting around our circle were describing the ways they’ve discovered new parts of themselves through creativity, friendship, and taking chances.

As we gathered for our closing ring, the ensemble member who had played Lear returned to the subject of her newfound ambition. She made it clear that she wasn’t done exploring the role and joked that another ensemble member who also wanted to play Lear was going to have some competition.

I laughed, but I was also incredibly proud of her.

Not because she had suddenly become a different person, or because reading a larger role was somehow more valuable than reading a smaller one. I was proud because she had made a choice to challenge herself.

At the beginning of the night, she told me she wanted to branch out, even though she was nervous.

And then she did.

That’s what I keep thinking about as I reflect on this session. One woman rediscovered the importance of creativity she’d set aside after high school. Another found the courage to sing because someone else believed she could. Another reminded us that happiness deserves to be a purpose in itself. And another finally decided it was time to try playing King Lear.

None of those discoveries happened in isolation.

“We’re a machine and every one of us has a part in it.”

I think that’s exactly right.

And this week, I got to watch a few more of those parts begin to move in ways they hadn’t before.