Felon: An American Washi Tale

Performed by poet, lawyer and MacArthur Fellow Reginald Dwayne Betts, Felon: An America Washi Tale is a powerful solo performance exploring the unexpected significance of paper in the American prison system. The play is about reimagining paper, from legal documents that initiate and end sentences to kites letters from loved ones providing vital lifelines, or book pages slid under the cell door of a teenage inmate paper serves as both a burden and a beacon of hope. Weaving together traditional theater, poetry, fine art and Japanese papermaking aesthetics, the piece is a meditation of Betts own experience with incarceration and his legal advocacy work to free others. This reflection on the challenges of living in the shadow of mass incarceration is a story of violence, love, and fatherhood.