The Meta Theatre Company 4th Season

Hi!  We are The Meta Theatre Company.  The Meta Theatre Company We create live performances for communities to share experiences, heal and grow.  MTC’s mission is to write, perform, and produce original work around the intersections of white privilege, race, class, gender and sexual orientation.  After the show,  MTC and audiences discuss how to create social change in their communities, and we make a plan to stay connected to keep working on the action plan.  MTC believes that ---After the curtain falls, community action begins! 

This picture shows some of our MTC cast, but not all.  Some of our cast members are currently incarcerated at The Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women in Clinton, New Jersey.  We are asking for donations to kick off our 2016 season, so we can use theatre as a way to stop mass incarceration.  

We have written a play called Hello My Name Is . . .  The video on this page is from a staged reading at Raritan Valley Community College in November 2015.  The play tells the story of Luz Ramirez de Paloma and her family as they move from Puerto Rico to the United States.  Does the American Dream exist? Is there an American Dream after incarceration? What happens to Luz and her family when they experience inter-generational incarceration, while trying to make it in the US? 

This play was developed by rehearsing weekly at The Edna Mahan Correctional Facility for Women over a two year period with a cast of 17 (8 on the inside and 9 on the outside).  MTC's rehearsal process weaves together two rehearsals a week (one on the inside and one on the outside) where the goal is to raise critical thinking in the group with a Paulo Freire-model/format of discussion. We focus on assessing power, privilege and oppression in larger systems (criminal justice system, media, schools), as well as our own lives.  The women use this critical thinking to write their stories of incarceration through the characters of Hello My Name Is . . .   MTC then performs the play  in the general public to raise critical thinking in the audience.  This educates audiences about socio-economic factors that lead to incarceration, how to challenge stereotypes about people who are incarcerated, and how to stop mass incarceration. 

In 2016, MTC will have the opportunity to tour this play and enter it into Theatre Festivals.  We are asking for $10,000 to fund our entire theatre season.  This would include:

September 2016 - We have been accepted into Performing The World in New York City!  Donations will support our production fees for 8 cast members to travel to NYC and perform Hello My Name Is . . .

October 2016 - MTC's Inside Cast Performing The Vagina Monologues at The Edna Mahan  Correctional Facility for Women

Spring of 2017 - Producing, Performing, and Touring Hello My Name Is  in New Jersey and throughout the United States

Summer of 2017 - Entering  Hello My Name Is . .  into NYC Theatre Festivals (City for a New Dream, Planet Connection, Fresh Fruit Festival, NYC Fringe)

Production costs for rehearsal space on the outside

Cost of writing materials:  journals, pens and copying scripts

Expand volunteer base of MTC to support women re-entering society from prison

The donations you give not only help our cause, but it is an opportunity for you to join a grass roots movement of social change.  Your support and financial generosity is a welcome gift that will ultimately reflect a love of humankind, a voluntary joining of community, resources, and action for the public good.