What does it take to end a life sentence? For these formerly imprisoned actors, it’s theatre

The workshop production “(Im)migrants of the State” by the Actors’ Gang opens with a moving scene of a prison visit. Dressed cheerfully and identically in blue button-down shirts and jeans, the characters introduce themselves to the audience – revealing their age at sentencing and something they loved.

In an example of true-to-life art, most of the cast were themselves cast as teenagers — the youngest was 15 — said co-director and ensemble member Rich Loya. Through theater they can address the emotions that have been repressed in order to survive.

“These are our truths in our real-life experiences before and during incarceration,” he said.

The Actors’ Gang Prison Project is a rehabilitation program that provides drama programs for 14 California state prisons, a repatriation facility, and a probation facility in LA County. What begins as an intensive week-long program evolves into a peer-led course that empowers incarcerated men and women to break through emotional barriers. The Actors’ Gang was founded in 1981 as an experimental theater company led by the actor “Shawshank Redemption” Tim Robbins is now celebrating the 40th anniversary of his very first production ‘Ubu the King’ with a Robbins-directed revival in the repertoire with a new piece ‘(Im)migrants of the State’. For Loya and many other life inmates, the Actors Gang has become a beacon of hope.

Loya joined the program in September 2016 for the seven-day intensive program, which runs daily from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. In September 2017, he was in a repatriation facility. He credits the gang of actors for the big change. After handing over his parole and moving to LA, he was reinstated in the program. One Friday afternoon, he walked to the Actors Gang headquarters in Culver City, rang the doorbell, and Jeremie Loncka, program director for the prison project and co-director of state immigrants, answered. Loncka offered Loya to return to prison, but this time to teach, and he replied, “enlist me.” In October 2018, Loya was teaching.

Loya was one of 25 people in his group who attended the program at Avenal State Prison in 2016. Of the 25, 22 have been released from prison and are now back home with their families. And of the 22, 17 received life sentences. He says there were “dark times” when it felt like they would be in prison forever. Changes to California’s three-strike law have brought much-needed relief, he said.

“When there was that little bit of hope in the early 2000s – that people were going home – it was unheard of,” he said.

Loya said people turned to self-help courses to make the dream come true, but it only went so far.

“I’ve taken dozens and dozens of self-help classes, none that allowed me to reconnect with emotions,” he said. “But it was the one lesson where I was able to reconnect with humanity, with myself, in a way that no other program or person has given or taught me.”

Many people joined the program in hopes of parole, even putting on makeup for acting purposes. For many, art was never on the table. Loncka said he usually starts each class by asking for a hand show from anyone who has attended an art program before. Few raise their hands.

“The part of it that keeps me coming back is the human side when I see these breakthroughs,” Loncka said.

Each meeting begins with a “glowing share” in the circle to share what’s going on in everyone’s life, good or bad. It follows the group’s four pillars: “Speak from the heart, listen from the heart, be lean, be spontaneous,” said Loya.

What follows is a series of plays and exercises. In a game called Names, Movies, Gestures, each person in the circle says their name, a favorite movie, and a physical gesture. Everyone in the circle confirms they were listening by repeating the three at once.

“It’s really cool to see when that happens because it brings out a smile,” Loya said. “Usually you don’t see a smile in the garden.”

They’re not therapists, but for those on the inside, the program can be therapeutic, Loncka said.

Loncka joined the Actors Gang Prison Project in 2010. At that time, the curriculum was loose. In 2012, the program was more structured and received funding.

“We didn’t start out with the intention of doing theater indoors,” he said.

Now there are programs in prisons that have been running for nearly a decade, and the self-directed groups create their own plays and performances through commedia dell’arte.

In the theatrical art style, the groups explore four emotions through improvisation and stock characters: happiness, sadness, fear, and anger. Loya, who was tried at the age of 16 and spent about 30 years in prison, had trouble controlling his emotions because he was not allowed to show weakness in prison.

“I was sad so many times to be away from the holidays, away from my family, but I couldn’t show it,” Loya said. “So it was anger. It was always anger as my secondary emotion. That’s how I survived, because we no longer stay inside, behind the walls, we survive.”

The gang’s new show chronicles the experiences of the cast, made up of 11 men and two women formerly incarcerated, as they peel back the layers of trauma spent decades revealing that they are a threat to society. During rehearsals on March 9, they talked about their past — including childhood memories.

(Im)migrants from the State tell honest stories that show the impact of the program. There are rules, restrictions and racial boundaries on the premises, but the classes at the Actors’ Gang Prison Project offered a glimpse of the humanity that had been stripped from them, Loya said.

Loya turned to the usual theater phrase “the show must go on” with a new interpretation. While imprisoned with life sentences, they continued to remain in prison and leave prison. Although the sentencing seems like a dead end, their worlds, lives and experiences still mattered.

“We hope that what they do [the audience] takeaway is that people deserve a second chance,” Loya said. “We’re showing what we can be, who are positive, influential members of society.”