Documentary - One Story at a Time:
The Formerly Incarcerated People's Performance Project's First Five Years (working title)
The Formerly Incarcerated People's Performance Project (FIPPP) helps formerly incarcerated people develop and share their experiences and wisdom learned with the goal of changing the world for the better one story at a time. FIPPP has evolved from one performer and one director to a full-fledged theatre company consisting of fifteen (or "24 rotating"?) performers and seven professional directors and instructors. Starting in 2020, they were invited to be the inaugural company-in-residence at Berkeley Repertory Theater in 2023 and are sharing powerful stories of the carceral experience on Bay Area stages.
FIPPP believes sharing these diverse stories is key to both help remove the stigma of incarceration and foster understanding on both the societal and human levels. FIPPP nurtures new voices, helps them develop their stories, and brings them to life for an audience. These performances and post-show dialogues can educate and change opinions that can impact families, and communities, and a check at the ballot box by hearing the first-hand accounts of formerly incarcerated individuals.
The FIPPP team and filmmaker Jim Granato have been filming the performances, the rehearsals, and the work off-site and behind the scenes as the performers work towards their third full festival of new work honoring their fifth year to produce a documentary. Hearing stories from those who have been incarcerated fosters compassion and understanding about the circumstances and choices that led them to incarceration, what they endured and learned inside, and the hard-won success of their lives after incarceration. Their stories give hope for the human condition and our ability to reform and reinvent ourselves, as well as allow us as a society to reconsider the inhumane conditions that prisoners often endure. The documentary, “One Story at a Time,” will bring these stories to a wider, national audience.
FIPPP believes sharing these diverse stories is key to both help remove the stigma of incarceration and foster understanding on both the societal and human levels. FIPPP nurtures new voices, helps them develop their stories, and brings them to life for an audience. These performances and post-show dialogues can educate and change opinions that can impact families, and communities, and a check at the ballot box by hearing the first-hand accounts of formerly incarcerated individuals.
The FIPPP team and filmmaker Jim Granato have been filming the performances, the rehearsals, and the work off-site and behind the scenes as the performers work towards their third full festival of new work honoring their fifth year to produce a documentary. Hearing stories from those who have been incarcerated fosters compassion and understanding about the circumstances and choices that led them to incarceration, what they endured and learned inside, and the hard-won success of their lives after incarceration. Their stories give hope for the human condition and our ability to reform and reinvent ourselves, as well as allow us as a society to reconsider the inhumane conditions that prisoners often endure. The documentary, “One Story at a Time,” will bring these stories to a wider, national audience.
Many thanks to our amazing donors for their invaluable support!
Our work is important. According to The Sentencing Project, there are over two million people currently incarcerated in the United States. And often the resources to help them successfully integrate back into their communities after they have served their time are not available. At any given time, there are almost one million people out on parole. We believe in sharing their stories. With our documentary, we hope to expand our reach to libraries, schools, and prisons where young people and incarcerated people could benefit from the community and tools of storytelling and being heard one story at a time.
Our work is important. According to The Sentencing Project, there are over two million people currently incarcerated in the United States. And often the resources to help them successfully integrate back into their communities after they have served their time are not available. At any given time, there are almost one million people out on parole. We believe in sharing their stories. With our documentary, we hope to expand our reach to libraries, schools, and prisons where young people and incarcerated people could benefit from the community and tools of storytelling and being heard one story at a time.
