Replay: Rediscovering the Human with Kate Powers

Follow Your Curiosity

Happy holidays, everyone! I'm thrilled to present my second holiday replay of the year, which was easily one of my favorite interviews of 2023, if not my very favorite. It's a perfect story for the holidays, reminding us that there's room for redemption in all of us. Enjoy!

My guest today is Kate Powers, a lifelong theatre kid who became an off-Broadway and regional theatre director. Her list of credits is long, but I wanted to talk to Kate about the unusual home she’s found for her work: maximum security prisons. Kate is the founding artistic director of the Redeeming Time Project, which uses Shakespeare to effect positive change for the incarcerated and the formerly incarcerated. She has been a facilitator with Rehabilitation Through the Arts (www.rta-arts.org) at Sing Sing Correctional Facility since 2009.

Kate tells me how she discovered this work, how she runs her program, and the transformative effect of combining Shakespeare—famous for his depictions of all facets of human nature—with a prison population. I’m not gonna lie to you—I had goosebumps for most of this interview, and I think you might, too. If you do, I hope you’ll consider donating to help these programs transform lives—you’ll find a list of links in the show notes.

Please leave a review of the show, and in it, tell us about a time when theater transformed a part of your life.

Want more? Here's a handy playlist with all my previous interviews with guests in theatre!

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