“whatdoesfreemean?” is the latest work by award-winning human rights playwright Catherine Filloux. It follows the journey of an African-American woman serving a long sentence for a non-violent drug offense. When Mary ends up in solitary confinement, she struggles to maintain her sanity. The play takes the audience into her psychic world. We travel alongside her self-guided intellectual and emotional journey into the nature of freedom, both physical and psychological, as Mary’s external and internal experiences unfold on stage in the present, in memory, and in the fantasies that help her survive. Directed by Amy S. Green, the cast includes James Edward Becton*, Brenda Crawley, Justin Jorrell, Galway McCullough*, Liz Morgan*, and Lisa Strum* as Mary.

The United States leads the world in incarceration by a hefty margin, according to the International Centre for Prison Studies; there are over 2.2 million people imprisoned and it is not necessarily because of higher crime rates, but because of laws and policies enacted over the past few decades. During these decades, there has also been a 700% increase in women being incarcerated, often for first-time offenses involving drugs. And incarceration is not an equal opportunist; POC are more likely to be imprisoned. Helping to call attention to this vital issue on a human level is Catherine Filloux’s new play whatdoesfreemean?, having its world premiere at The Tank. Ms. Filloux is an award-winning playwright, librettist and activist, writing about human rights and social issues for the past 25 years. whatdoesfreemean? takes the audience into the world of a women’s prison and deep into the life of Mary, an African-American woman convicted of a non-violent drug offense. Under the merciless federal sentencing policies that began in the 1980s with the war on drugs, Mary is serving a long sentence. Not only is Ms. Filloux’s play gut-wrenching theater, it is also rooted in several years of re …Read more