nothin New Play Follows Women’s Post-Prison Lives | New Haven Independent

New Play Follows Women’s Post-Prison Lives

Klein Memorial Auditorium.

“Her Time” poster.

An FBI community outreach worker and a local youth worker have teamed up to write, direct, and produce a play about the challenges women face after leaving prison.

That new play, Her Time, is the brainchild of Charles Grady, a specialist for the Connecticut FBI Community Outreach Program, and Steve Driffin, the youth and community programs manager for New Haven’s Connecticut Center for Arts and Technology (ConnCAT).

Her Time is scheduled to have a three-show run at the Klein Memorial Auditorium in Bridgeport on Nov. 16 and Nov. 17.

The subject of the play, Grady and Driffin explained on a recent episode of WNHH’s Criminal Justice Insider with Babz Rawls-Ivy and Jeff Grant,” is Kim Williams, a woman who has spent 25 years in federal prison for transporting a gun and drugs for a boyfriend suspected of murder.

Grady and Driffin co-wrote the script, with Driffin serving as the director and Grady as the executive producer.

This character last appeared in The 5K Motion, a 2012 movie that Grady, who spent 21 years as a Hamden police officer and continues to work as a professional television and movie actor, made with the FBI.

That movie was filmed in parts of Hartford, Bridgeport, and New Haven, including at the former Church Street South housing complex .

Contributed photo

Charles Grady.

In that movie, Williams received a 40-year sentence at just 18 years old for actions done in allegiance to her boyfriend, Grady said. Once the police caught up with her, though, her boo” abandoned her to stay out of legal trouble himself.

The play picks up with Williams over two decades later. She has gotten out of prison on appeal, and returns home to find that her mom has died, her children are now adults, and everything and everyone in her pre-incarceration life have changed beyond recognition.

While Williams herself is a fictional character, it was all based on reality,” Grady said about the stories of post-incarceration hardship featured in this play. This is the real deal.”

We want to tell the real story of post-incarceration,” Driffin said. Your neighborhood has changed. Everything has changed. You’re in this time vacuum, and you have to try to catch up — and real quick.”

Over 70 percent of women prisoners in this country are incarcerated for something they’ve done for a man, Grady said. He said he hears former female prisoners’ stories all the time through a program he founded in Bridgeport called Her Time, which is geared specifically towards providing a place for such women to meet, talk, share, and break bread with other former prisoners trying to re-acclimate to life outside the bars.

Thomas Breen file photo

Steve Driffin (left) with Gov. Ned Lamont at ConnCAT.

That program is an outgrowth of another venture Grady founded, called Hang Time Real Talk, which has chapters in New Haven, Bridgeport, Hartford, and Waterbury.

It’s all about tapping into the after effects,” Grady said about the reentry group sessions, and emotion, and how do you move forward with that level of pain?” Members of Her Time and Hang Time talk about both history and current events, he said, go on field trips together to everywhere from Washington D.C. to Newport, Rhode Island, and learn how to talk about the difficulties of life in and after prison.

When you treat people like human beings and fairly,” he said, great things happen.”

Click here to learn more about the play Her Time at the Klein Memorial Auditorium in Bridgeport.

Criminal Justice Insider” is sponsored by The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven.

Previous articles based on the program:
Prison To School Pipeline
A Second Chance In Washington State
From Community Health Patient To CEO
The Problem With Punishment
Rowland: Criminal Justice Reform Sands Have Shifted”
Ex-Inmate Seeks To Raise The Bar
New Corrections Chief Vows Prison Reform
1,000 Books Laid Path For Reentry
16 Years For A Crime He Didn’t Commit
Insider Trader Cases Sexier To Prosecute
Next Goal: Ban The Box For Housing, Too
Criminal Justice Crusader Reflects On Mass Incarceration, #MeToo
Society Needs A Second Chance,” Too
Imagining A Less Incarcerated World
Criminal Justice Reformer Refuses To Give Up
Criminal Record Controversy Propels Legislative Candidate
If’ Injects Humanity Into Incarceration
Carbone Fans The Youth Justice Flame
Forman: We’re Expelling Our Own, Too
Lawlor Sees Progress On Reform
From Mortgage Fraud To Criminal Justice Reform
Teen Encounter With Cops Spurred Reform Advocate
From Second Chance To No Chance Connecticut?
Project Longevity Coordinator Works Off A Debt
Ex-CEO Serves Justice Reform Life Sentence”
Ganim Describes Path Back From Prison
Transition Time For Teens In Trouble
Parole Holds A Key To Reentry Puzzle
Organizer Takes Sawdust-On-Floor” Tack
Female Ex-Offenders Band Together
German-Inspired Reform Calms Prison
Son’s Arrest Helped Shape Porter’s Politics

Tags:

Sign up for our morning newsletter

Don't want to miss a single Independent article? Sign up for our daily email newsletter! Click here for more info.


Post a Comment

Commenting has closed for this entry

Comments

Avatar for street disciple