Theater harnesses the power to both break worlds down, and build worlds of our choosing. As a performer and a former community engagement specialist for a Washington, D.C-based theater, artist and scholar Lisa Biggs has seen this happen several times across many places. As a graduate student, Biggs chose the discipline of ethnography to study the work of nonprofits who provide theater and performance-based programs in women’s prisons in the United States and South Africa. The book produced from that research, The Healing Stage: Black Women, Incarceration, and the Art of Transformation (Ohio State University Press, 2022), is a thoughtful reflection on how mass incarceration affects Black women and the means by which they process their past and their experience with the criminal justice system.

In the latest episode of PEN America’s Works of Justice podcast, Malcolm Tariq, senior editorial manager of PEN America’s Prison and Justice Writing Program, speaks with Biggs about her process of working with theater programs in prison, and how these groups cultivate healing spaces for Black women.