Shakespeare Behind Bars founder to visit New Zealand

Curt Tofteland has 37 years' experience working in professional theatre, as a director, actor, producer, playwright, writer, teacher, programme developer and prison arts practitioner. Photo / Supplied

Curt Tofteland, the founder of the Shakespeare Behind Bars programme in United States prisons, will be visiting New Zealand later this month to explain the role art, theatre and the works of William Shakespeare can play in the rehabilitation of offenders.

He is the fifth Creative Fellow of the University of Auckland's Creative Thinking Project, and will be giving public presentations in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch from 18 to 28 May. The Creative Thinking Project intends to increase people's understanding of the creative process and how it can enrich an individual's and a community's wellbeing, development and prosperity.

Mr Tofteland has 37 years' experience working in professional theatre, as a director, actor, producer, playwright, writer, teacher, programme developer, and prison arts practitioner. Shakespeare Behind Bars, which he started twenty years ago, is an internationally acclaimed programme which provides offenders and ex-offenders with theatrical experiences, aimed at helping them overcome various personal and social issues through the development of important life skills. Ultimately, this contributes to their reintegration into society.

Associate Professor Peter O'Connor of the University of Auckland's Creative Thinking board says Tofteland has a deep understanding of how creativity can change people's lives for the better.

"As a board, we were particularly interested in how creativity can impact on the lives of prisoners, young people in youth justice and those recently released from prison."

It has been proven over decades that using Shakespeare in the justice system can greatly reduce recidivism rates. For members of Shakespeare Behind Bars, that rate is an amazingly low 5.1 percent. That compares to a national recidivism rate in the United States of 60 percent.

"I don't know of another programme in American corrections that has as low a recidivism rate as does Shakespeare Behind Bars," says Tofteland. "This low recidivism rate is indicative of a programme that changes human behaviour and gives prisoners the tools they need to be successful when they are released from prison."

Tofteland will be giving three public presentations in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. Each will be accompanied by a symposium for invited staff from the Department of Corrections, Arts in Corrections practitioners, academics and students.

From 1995 to 2008, Curt produced and directed 14 Shakespeare productions. In 2008, Shakespeare Behind Bars has become a not-for-profit organisation in and of itself. Then in 2011, the programme was introduced to the Earnest C. Brooks Correctional Facility in Michigan. Tofteland now facilitates eight programmes working with 250 prisoners per week in two Michigan prisons.

"What called me to this work in Corrections and what sustains me in continuing is my belief that human beings are born inherently good, but that some human beings are born into a world of poverty, chaos, violence and dysfunction," says Tofteland.

"This doesn't necessarily allow the innate human goodness within to blossom. Rather, it must be called forth through transformative programmes that seek to get at what it means to be human."

Tofteland also travels the United States visiting college campuses to screen the Shakespeare Behind Bars documentary and conduct audience talks, master classes and lectures.

Public lectures by Curt Tofteland

Auckland
18 May 2015
6.00 pm
Library Basement Lecture Theatre B10, University of Auckland General Library
5 Alfred Street, Auckland
RSVP: creativethinking@auckland.ac.nz

Christchurch
26 May 2015
6.00pm
Te Puna Wanaka, Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology (CPIT)
130 Madras Street, Christchurch
RSVP: creativethinking@auckland.ac.nz

Wellington
27 May 2015
6.00pm
Soundings Theatre, Level 2, Te Papa Museum of New Zealand
Cable Street, Wellington
RSVP: Friends of Te Papa web site.

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