FREEDOM PROJECT is a multimedia physical theater piece that interweaves gripping personal stories, evocative imagery, and athletic choreography in an examination of mass incarceration in America. With material drawn from extensive research, as well as personal experience, the Everett Company call upon our common humanity to challenge the conditions that have transformed the “land of the free” into the most incarcerating country in the world.

Premiere at Brown University:

March 13 & 14 @ 8pm

Granoff Center for the Creative Arts: 154 Angell Street Providence, Rhode Island 02906

Click here to reserve tickets.

At Everett Stage:

March 20-22, 27-29, April 3-4, 10-12

Fridays & Saturdays at 8pm and Sundays at 2pm – 9 Duncan Avenue, Providence, RI 02906

Call 401-831-9479 to reserve tickets.

Partial funding for this event comes from Brown University Creative Arts Council and the Department of Theatre Arts and Performance Studies. SURDNA Foundation has provided generous support for FREEDOM PROJECT. Freedom Project is a National Performance Network (NPN) Creation Fund Project co-commissioned by Contemporary Dance Theater in partnership with The Yard, Brown University and NPN. For more information: www.npnweb.org.

CLICK HERE TO READ “CINDERBLOCK STORIES”, AN ARTICLE BY CASEY NILSSON IN RI MONTHLY MAGAZINE.

“Christopher Johnson is telling a story and he’s saying it straight. Devoid of flourishes yet not without elegance, the acclaimed spoken word artist blankets an audience with the plain truth of his past growing up in Newark, New Jersey.”

Copyright permission granted, Rhode Island Monthly Communications Inc 2015

Everett Announces New Work – Freedom Project

Everett has started the second year of a three-year research and creation process for the development of our new touring piece. Freedom Project will be a multi-disciplinary documentary theater production that shares the stories of people who have been marginalized by America’s criminal justice system. The project examines and critiques that system through the juxtapositions of personal stories with jarring statistics that reveal gross racial and socio-economic disparities in the way the law is applied, especially in regard to the War on Drugs.

Read More

Freedom Project Videos:

Freedom Project: Freedom Café - Hip-Hop Saved My Life

Freedom Project: Freedom Café - A Boy Named Nothing

Freedom Project: Freedom Café - Dear Mr. President

Everett’s Open Stage: P.U.S.H. and Tru Love

RI Monthly: Little Company, Huge Ideas

Everett: Company, Stage and School in Providence forgoes dusty playbills filled with decades-old ideas for progressive, thought-provoking material that can’t be seen anywhere else. The company, cofounded in 1986 by Dorothy, Aaron and Rachael Jungels, is known for producing powerful pieces of hybrid dance/theater backed by thorough academic and community research. Members are currently in the midst of a two-year research and development endeavor, called the Freedom Project, in collaboration with Brown University. Read More

Freedom Project: Freedom Café

The Freedom Project Freedom Café examined issues related to incarceration, such as the disproportionate number of prisoners of color in the prison system, and the prison system’s default role as society’s solution to addiction and other mental health issues. The evening included poetry and personal stories from a Providence native who grew up in the prison system. Read More