This fall, students in Dr. Alan Litsey’s “Theatre’s Call to Action” course collaborated with UAB and its current exhibition in the Abroms-Engels Institute for the Visual Arts, “Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration,” culminating in a special reading of a new play.

Students will produce the play, “Men’s Training,” written by Daoud Boone, who is currently incarcerated at Limestone Correctional Facility. The reading will begin at 6:30 p.m. Monday, Nov. 29 in the Alys Stephens Performing Art Center’s Sirote Theatre.

“I was very moved by the play and proposed that the ‘Theatre’s Call to Action’ students produce it,” says Litsey, professor of theatre. “Students read the play and were excited to produce it as a staged reading.”

The course is designed to combine theatre production with service learning and community engagement, and Litsey says “Men’s Training” has been particularly impactful. Students collaborate as a team, present a theatre project connected to a community partner’s goals, and reflect on the importance of their community partners and how theatre can play a role in their work.

For this fall’s focus, Rachel Estes, director of outreach at Canterbury United Methodist Church and friend of Litsey, connected him with Pat VanderMeer, who teaches writing and works with people who are incarcerated. VanderMeer shared Boone’s play with Litsey, and they began to develop the idea of staging a reading and working alongside UAB to do so.

“Students have brought a great deal to our process,” Litsey says. “They have discussed how playwright Daoud Boone dismantles stereotypes and challenges us to experience the real human struggles of those who are incarcerated. They have also examined the dehumanizing process people go through in prison.”

Boone, a military vet, studied theatre in college and continues to write for himself and for the other prisoners around him, he says. “Men’s Training” examines the violence and racism within prisons as well as the people who find ways to grow and thrive within the system, together presenting a challenge and new perspective for readers and viewers.

Diega MacDougall serves as both an actor and codirector of the reading, assisting head director Gia Warren with the vision for the show. As a staged reading, they have cast across genders and races to present the play, rather than portraying each of the characters.

“Learning more about the topic of mass incarceration has really made an impact on how I see our world, and since the play is based in a prison in Alabama, it feels more tangible and personable than if it took place somewhere else,” MacDougall says.

For MacDougall, the show has helped open her eyes to oppression that lies outside of her own experiences, and the play has showed her how she can continue to learn more and encourage others to do the same.

“‘Men’s Training’ actually puts the audience in a position where they start to sympathize with the characters, which I think will send some people for a loop in the best way possible,” she says. “It’s our responsibility to educate ourselves on what we don’t know, and I think this show is a useful outlet to get started in learning more about the systemic racism that runs rampant in our country.”

In preparation for the play, the class has discussed other readings on incarceration like “Behind a Convict’s Eyes” by K.C. Carceral and select chapters from “The New Jim Crow” by Michelle Alexander. These works have tied closely to the service learning and on-stage portion of the class, and students are eager to bring attention to Boone’s voice.

“It’s one thing to see a show that someone wrote about a situation that they have never experienced or just thought would be a good hook,” MacDougall says, “but it’s another to see a show that the playwright lives every day. It’s deeper than those other shows, and not many plays choose to center around an entire cast of prisoners. Each character is unapologetically themselves, and that should be rewarded.”

Join the “Theatre’s Call to Action” class for their presentation of “Men’s Reading.” Register here for the free event, which you can attend in person or over Zoom.