The end of the beginning...

and the start of a new fight. We have accomplished what we set out for. We have set the wheels in motion. Thousand Kites will be performed around the country and hopefully we will put an end to the injustice in the prison system... or at least educate others.This has been an amazing experience and I will continue the fight for justice through the stories and words of those who have suffered, as well as my own. Thank you all so much.
Much Love,
Skyler Goff

It's Showtime!

Final dress rehearsal tonight, and I couldn't be more pleased. Despite the fact that Appalshop was here filming and often putting a camera in their faces, the actors stayed focused and professional. If audience response is any indication, this will be a very powerful show.

Send Wishes to the "Thousand Kites" Team

Wednesday will be the world premiere performance of "Thousand Kites." Tonight, a film crew from Appalshop will arrive to film the final dress rehearsal as well as the Opening performance. Alan Elsner, author of Gates of Injustice, also arrives Wednesday for a two-day stay. Everyone involved is working very hard. We had a small invited audience last night who participated in a lively discussion after the play and documentary.

Feel free to click on "Comments" to send wishes to everyone involved in the show. I will post your notes in the dressing room!

Voices

Scott read a letter to us today that was from one of the inmates we met at Avery Mitchell. The whole letter was amazing, but the part that really affected me was where he talked about the political systems--specifically that felons lose the right to vote, rendering them voiceless. I get to perform the theme song for the play, also called Thousand Kites, which begins with the lines, "A voice for the voiceless/ I represent the ones that yearn to be heard/ So every word is a testimony/ This one is for my homie." Linking those two together, I almost broke out in tears. The gentlemen that we met, and the other inmates that we saw but did not meet, are truly voiceless, unable to speak out and be counted; by doing this play, we do become their voices, raising the questions they can't, and finding the change in our system that will keep our prisons from becoming a permanent dumping ground for our people.

If our every word is a testimony, this one is for Tony.

Monday's Prison Visit

How to describe this place? To start with, "K-chakk, clack," the sound of a door being unlocked and then pushed open. Big, strong, electronic locks, always operated remotely by an unseen gatekeeper. One in the lobby where you check in, a short trip across a manicured lawn, another heavy click, another door, mail room, activity room, kitchen, click clack, a vestibule, click clack, a sweep of emerald grass and slow-fire mountains in fall colors, a trio of squat gray double-cubes in between. How many doors in between "us" and "them?" How many doors between prisoners and public? How many locks between you and your loved ones? Ka-chack, clack. One step further. Ka-chack, clack. Barracks. Ka-chack, clack. Classroom. Ka-chack, clack. Gray hallway, sickly fluorescent lights. Ka-chack, clack. Yard, canteen. At five cents an hour, a Snicker's bar might be a week's earnings. Ka-chack, clack. Five dollars, no big deal, you say? A hundred hours at prison pay. Ka-chack, clack. Y'all come back.

The Prison

Imagine with me if you can, a beautiful valley. The colors of fall blaze in a brilliant splendor. The cool air cuts across rolling hills of surprisingly green grass. A place where nature could be at it's fullest,were it not for the monoliths of gray cement that protrude from the earth like an industrial blemish. In the court yard, the cold gray steps dig into the hills, climbing up to the maw of a monster of hard stone.It's large mouth is braced open by tall pillars, allowing us to see the rows of orange teeth stretching into its gullet. It's eyes are many and slitted, instilling fear into the hearts of all who enter, holding dominion over all.This is a place where men hide beneath their beds, shrouded in their blankets with the hope that the light shining through the fibers will remind them of the night sky. This is a place where men are reverted to the age of four or five, where the adults tell them they "are very good", and that they are "doing so well." It sucks the happiness right out of you, this terrible monster in the mountains, like the Jabberwock resting in the forest. And if you are ever lucky enough to leave, be sure not to look back , as not to be blinded by the light that glistens from its sharp steel claws.

Skyler Goff

Sometimes a Miracle Happens

Sometimes during the rehearsal process, a show that seemed filled with fits and starts suddenly comes together all at once and lights up the auditorium like rays of sunlight bursting through an iron-gray sky. Tonight was one of those moments. Suddenly there was a buoyant sense of energy that lifted the emotions higher than they had been before. The cast became a unit, supporting each other in every moment, and those positive thoughts made its way through the audience and made them part of the unit.

I let the cast go home early tonight, because they had done the show the way it needed to be done. Leave well enough alone.

Saturday, we start technical rehearsals, and an entirely different element -- lights, costumes, sound -- will come on the scene. For a few days, all the new things will set the production back while the actors integrate it all again. But then all the elements will come together as we near opening night.

For now, I think I'll enjoy tonight's glimpse of what could be.

Prison Visit

Sorry for this post being a little late, but it took a little while for the visit to sink in. It was an interesting experience going to the prison. One aspect that really troubled me was the grounds. Outside each of the three housing units where elaborate markers bearing the unit's name such as "Avery". The markers where very beautiful, some made of stone, others involving garden waterfalls. It bothered me because it seemed almost a mockery of what this place really is. They seemed to be a strange "home sweet home" sign for their prison. It made me feel like they where making fun of the prisoners there, that this was their home for the rest of their life. It was very unsettling.
On a lighter note I thought that the door closing in the segregation cell was a little funny to see everyone jump like that. I sure it was intended purely as a joke. However the entire segregation unit was very daunting. Rows of single cells, low lights, spartan atmosphere, and metallic furniture. It felt both like a factory and a prison at the same time. I was very surprised when they told the group that many of the inmates did not take advantage of the offered 45 minutes of time out of their cells, but when I saw where they would go, I would probably stay inside as well. Suffice it so say it was a cage big enough to stand and walk in a small circle and little else.
The corrections officers seemed to be very polite, and at the same time proud of their job. Their was evidence of a family atmosphere in unlikely places such as a notice board with race pools for the officers. All the officers seemed to know the other's name, and I believe I remember a conversation involving a monthly barbecue for the officers. This aspect was not surprising to me. If I where to work in a prison I would probably develop fast relationships with my fellow officers as well to help cope with the stress of working there.
I'm very thankful we had this opportunity and I hope some of the other company members will share their feelings as well.

Prison Visit

On Monday and again today I will be taking members of the cast and artistic team to visit Avery/Mitchell Correctional Institution in Spruce Pine. I have taught for about six years at Foothills and Western Youth in Morganton, so I am fairly well acquainted with the prison environment. My Drama Department colleagues Rob Bowen and Laura Facciponti have also done some prison teaching. However, I must admit that when we were taken into a segregation cell, I found myself feeling very uncomfortable -- especially when the cell door started to close (I think the officers were playing a little joke). The students on Monday's trip had many different reactions, which I hope they'll share. I found the visit very sad. So many young lives ruined, many of them for "crimes" like drug possession. While the United States has only 5% of the world's population, we have nearly 25% of the world's incarcerated population. Prisons have become a multi-billion dollar business in America -- we have built an average of 50 new prison each year for the past twenty years. Dubious laws such as "three strikes an your out" and the sentencing guidelines laws, as well as the closing of so many mental health facilities since the 1980s has led to an explosion in the prison population. At around $35,000 per year to house inmates, and much more in maximum prisons where the cost approaches $60,000 a year, we warehouse people from 16 to 85. Surely this money would be better spent on education, substance abuse rehab programs, and social services. Of course there are people who need to be removed from society -- we could never eliminate prisons entirely. But our use of prisons as a substitute for rational social policies and community involvement is a blot on our nation's soul.
As Fyodor Dostoevsky said, "A society should be judged not by how it treats its outstanding citizens but by how it treats its criminals." And, I might add, how it treats those who spend their lives guarding those criminals. In Gates of Injustice: The Crisis in America's Prisons, Alan Elsner quotes a prison guard as saying there are three things you get when you take a job as a correctional officer: a truck, a gun, and a divorce. Increased suicide rates, substance abuse, and domestic violence is the result of spending eight to twelve hours a day in the stressful conditions of our prisons. Anybody who is acquainted with Philip Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment, recently written about in The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil, will recognize how the prison environment can turn normal people into abusers very, very quickly.
Perhaps it is time for us to consider whether our current approach to law and order is working, and whether there might be better ways to keep our society safe without destroying the lives of inmates, guards, their families, and their communities.

Rehersal Tonight

I feel like we really worked hard tonight on a lot of aspects of the show. I think the best way to judge how a rehearsal goes is how you feel when you leave. I felt great, and I think everyone else did as well. It seems to be shaping up very well. I hope you all feel the same way. Thanks for the hard work everybody!

Music, Music, Music.

Skyler Goff here wanting to express how blown away I was at how amazing last night was. Our Guitar Player Jeff has joined the crew and in quite a remarkable way. I got chills last night just watching him pick the songs up with just one listen to the music. He has truly brought new life into the show!

In addition to being one of the ASMs for this show, I'm also on the light hang crew. We started the hang last night and boy am I excited!

First off, I'd like to say that neither I nor the faculty thought I'd live to see the day that I would enjoy being thirty feet off the ground balancing an expensive piece of equipment on my legs over a hole in the floor. But, I have been nurtured into a true love of hanging lights. For most of the work I've done on shows here, I've gotten course credit - like everyone does - depending on how much time the job took and how well I did. For this hang, though, I just volunteered to be on the crew.

I get a deep sense of satisfaction while working with my hands, especially on something so fun. Also, time in the grid (the "ceiling" that the lights are hung from) affords one a bit of space to think. I enjoyed it, especially since working on this show has raised a few questions for me.

I can't help but wonder if there is a conflict here between so serious a message about what others want for and the fact that we're presenting it in such a decadent (for lack of a better term) art form. While it's true that as an educational setting, we reuse and recycle as much as we can, there is still quite a bit of waste in theatre. It comes with the territory. So what are we really saying here?

Any ideas?