Welcome to Busted Pencils, fully-ledded education talk, educated educators, talk in education.
Dr. Johnny Lupinachi here today with our producer chairman of the boards, Jacob, Jacob, how
you doing?
Johnny, I'm great. I'm excited to be here. I was worried that if Tim was here with us,
there would be three professors. I'd be uncomfortable. I'm more comfortable with
just two. So I think things are going to work out just fine.
Well, we don't, we never want to overemphasize the educated educators bit, but we're always
excited to have fellow educators on the show. And boy, do we have a great guest here with
us today? I'm just going to jump right into introducing him briefly. And then let's dive
into a little bit of the story of our guest here today with us on Busted Pencils. We have
Dr. Jonathan Schaler right from the University of Wisconsin Parkside. So local guy for a lot of
our listeners. This is exciting. He is the director of the certificate program in conflict analysis
and resolution and the Shakespeare prison project and his teaching and research focus on language
and social interaction, storytelling, dialogue and performance for personal and social transformation.
Man, we are in good company. Dr. Schaler, thanks for joining us here today. And just a little
bit, I've learned about you. I'm pretty excited to have you here, man. So for our listeners, if you
can, take a moment and tell us a little bit more about you and about how you got to this
exciting Shakespeare prison project. Well, sure. And thanks so much for having me as a guest. This
is a lot of fun. Jacob is a former student of mine. And that's kind of cool. So that's how we made
the connection. So yeah, I guess what I want to tell you is that I've been a theater geek
all my life. It started because my parents were very demonstrative people and my mother had done
theater. She was lived in New York City and she was on radio there. She was a surely temple
lookalike and performed in the New York City world's fair in 1939. So the family legacy goes
way back. And when I was just a kid, I was so much itching to perform that I worked with my
brothers and sisters to create a Mark's brothers act. I was groucho. My brother was Chico. My other
brother was Harpo and our sister was the the foil. We played against her and had a lot of fun
doing that. I mean, we did the makeup, the costumes. I typed up scripts and we took off. After
that was high school theater, college theater and then I got interested in communication. That's
why I'm a communication professor because I want to take this bigger perspective on life that
looks at all of life as communication. That would be what we're doing right now. That would be
theater. That would be everything. That's what makes us human is our ability to interact with
each other and to make sense of things. And I also was very interested in working with conflict
because I saw it all around me and I just wanted to help people find more constructive ways to
deal with conflict. So those two things really are my main interest and the communication
dealing with conflict and theater and the two of these things come together in my work and they
have in many ways over the years. When I began work in prisons way back in 1995 if you can believe it.
I started doing something called theater of empowerment which was about getting the guys to act
out scenes from their lives and to explore the issues that way and to experiment with different
ways of responding to conflict. And then I met a woman named Agnes Wilcox at a conference she runs
or did run the prison performing arts in St. Louis, Missouri and she had done hamlet down there.
I heard about this on Ira Glasses this American life on NPR and I asked to have lunch with her.
She was more than welcoming and she told me how she did it and it excited me because I have been
a fan of Shakespeare all my life and it never occurred to me before that moment that I could
or even consider doing Shakespeare plays in a prison but she was doing it and she encouraged me to
do the same and I thought yeah let's do this and I got started in 2004 is when the Shakespeare
kicked in and we've been doing it ever since we're still doing it. Oh I love it I love Dr.
thanks for sharing the backstory I think that's always so fun to hear like how we become the people
we are and our interests are passion how we teach the research we do it converges on these
exciting projects and you know tell us a little bit more about the Shakespeare prison project right
it's it's pretty remarkable I've been reading about it since Jacob shared it with me and you know
so excited for you to share that with our listeners so the Shakespeare prison project
Dr. Shailer talks about it. Okay well you know it's evolved over the years but the basic thing is
that we study we discuss we rehearse and then we perform Shakespeare plays sometimes we do a
nine-month process sometimes we do a three-month process both of those work and what I found was
that the the guys were really excited about the characters the themes the stories we started out
with King Lear and that's a family drama in some ways it's a really scary dysfunctional
family where a father is being very manipulative with his daughters and they are very divided
against each other and the whole thing is a real mess and and then expands into a political conflict
so connecting the the personal to the political and these guys just really dove in now when you
ask what is it really about it's not just about studying Shakespeare and putting on plays which is
a lot of fun and it's a good thing to be doing other than rotting behind bars to to make good use
of your time to keep your your mind and your heart and your social skills awake and alive
and really you know I guess I just told you what it's about it's it's about doing all of those
things and it's about self-awareness it's about developing communication skills it's about developing
empathy for others and yeah I could tell a million stories about that well I might ask you a
couple of those stories Dr. but I have a question because as I was reading about it and then chatting
with our chairman of the board Jacob about it you know one of the exciting things about his
experience with it was being able to be a student who was involved it so thinking about like us
professors like we teach we're teachers and a lot of you listeners out there are teachers some
in higher education some in elementary schools lots of you in high schools out there that's the
one that's I hear the most from I feel like high school teachers listening to a lot of civic media
but nonetheless Dr. Shayla can you talk about like the the partnership here like the whole
layers of where there's like who's involved it's not just you and some incarcerated folks perform
in Shakespeare okay well you know there's the the people in the Department of Corrections who
are involved and then there's outside artists who are involved and then there's friends and family
members who are involved so to pick up one of the most important pieces when the guys perform
they have the opportunity to perform for an inside audience other prisoners and then they
have an opportunity to perform in the visiting room for their family their friends
and invited members of the community and that's really a special event because then they feel
like they're being seen as real people that in a way they're being welcomed back into the community
prior to you know their actual release gives them a sense of hope and possibility
so that that layer is very important and then I have brought guest artists in to a significant
degree fight coordinators theater professors who have their own exercises and ways of exploring
text and movement and and so on have had professional customers build costumes for us university
Wisconsin Parkside has also provided us with costumes and the Department of Corrections has
been very supportive it's been challenging because it poses a lot of challenges to the security
of the prison and they you know need to be able to do this in a way that maintains appropriate
boundaries and that with all this stuff coming in and going out that no contraband is
is being filtered through that and and and so on so I work very closely with the education
director and the security director to make sure things go well I have a question professor
Shailer I'm thinking about this now that you have this experience putting this production on and
you have the proven results that it has positive benefits it's an easier sell but when you came
into this starting out was that a hard conversation I mean how did you get buy in from the prison system
to let you try this and get to the point where you have these positive results yeah that first year
I was very lucky the stars aligned is the way I look at it number one you know personnel in the
prison setting they rotate through pretty rapidly compared to people in other professions they
they don't usually stick in their positions for too long and I just happened to catch
them at a time when the education director was an unusually progressive and forward looking
and creative person who was like Shakespeare yeah let's look at that you want to do that
whip up a proposal while we'll sell it to the boarden and she worked very closely her name is
Jean Timmy by the way she deserves a shout out she still lives in Wisconsin and she
helped me develop a proposal that and gave me guidelines or you know good guidance on how to set
something up that would be welcomed by the institution for example aligning with institution
objectives I'm sure that that was clear so that was the one first piece of good luck and then
the second piece of good luck which kind of accelerated our welcome I guess you could say is that
there was at the time of a media specialist working at the university and his name is Dave Buchanan
shout out to Dave Buchanan he he had some contacts he had some ways of promoting activities that were
related to the university and somehow he connected with the Midwest bureau chief of the New York
Times who was in Chicago and her name at that time well her name is Judy Rudorin she changed her name
at one point but anyway Judy Rudorin was interested and they took on the story and we made the front
page of the New York Times our first production so I mentioned that because the media attention
elevated you know corrections is mostly bad news when they're in the news and so the fact that
this came out and gave them so much positive attention was a really good thing and gave us a
huge burst of energy and and support right there at the beginning and then Wisconsin public radio
came in and that also helped and yeah so you were you're asking how we got going and how we got
buying it was both the institution gene teamy and also a bit of luck with the the publicity I guess
yeah absolutely I love that here in these stories and you know teachers out there when you're
thinking about these really cool ways to connect what we're teaching about or if you're a researcher
and you're working you know on higher education the ways that our research interests both connect to
our teaching and to what we give to the community you know and and Dr. Shailer you're describing you
know really thoughtfully here and I appreciate you sharing it the complexities of partnership
and and you you talk about this in your work community dialogue and the levels of communication
required through community dialogue to have partnerships that they start somewhere and they grow
and they grow so I was out I'm gonna take you up on that offer to ask you questions about stories
each do you have a particular story that stands out to you from the Shakespeare project that kind
of embodies that partnership growth that community dialogue aspect that you're describing
well there as I mentioned there there are so many I think one one thing that's very special is
when that there's a talk back and we always make time for that between the actors and the audience
whether it's an inside audience or invited guests and I remember the year that we did the tempest
there was a young man in the cast who played Ferdinand the young lover he was a prince and
um his daughter was in the audience and she had not seen she was young I believe she was
um I won't put an age on it because I don't know the the exact age but she was a young young girl
and she had not seen her father for five years and she had never seen her father
not not wearing prison greens because she was born when he was in prison and so for the very first
time she saw him dressed well and performing in a play and acting in an elevated way
all and I just remember how they ran into each other's arms after the play how moving that was
and I asked her did you what did you think of your dad up there and she said my daddy's a prince
and it was just a beautiful beautiful moment yeah I'm getting a little choked up here because I mean
that's like you spoke about the humanity aspect of this and the opportunity that it invites all
participants to remember that humanity and in the in the ways that I'll just say it this is my
my perspective on it that our prison system often takes away from people here in this country
um strip some of their humanity in many ways and we don't need to get into this show it's like
that we're focusing on a little something different but I appreciate that about this work in
that story um because maybe listener out there like us you may have a loved one who's incarcerated
or you most certainly may know someone with a family member incarcerated or can imagine
if if you're parent or maybe your parent was you know somebody who is in the uh
correctional facilities or incarcerated this so to be able to see them in ways that so often like
you said the prison uniforms the bars all of the security it it allows for like you said the
humanity of it and and that's a that's a beautiful thing uh I love that the other thing I love
John uh Jonathan or Dr. Shailer let me call it that's in his mind all right yeah I one of the other
things that I was reading about that I just loved um was the like the autobiographical performances
as part of it you know just as the teacher in me like thinking about okay so this is great we got
you know folks performing Shakespeare learning about it and all of the uh the research proven
value added to like learning Shakespeare why do theater and there's there's a whole lot of
prose to that but then I was reading about the autobiographical performance piece to it
and it reminded me of a project that a sociologist did called the the question bridge where incarcerated
men would post questions to men not incarcerated and back forth and create these video dialogues
but I love this idea of autobiographical performance can you share tell us a little bit about that
aspect yeah so we do it in various ways one way we do it is uh to create an entire uh second play
based on the responses that the men have to the play that they have had just done uh so I recall
after we did cymbalene I believe it was um which is a more rarely produced Shakespeare play
but a wonderful one one of his romances they um the guys wrote stories shared personal stories based
on uh their response to the play and one of the guys wrote about he had played in a strange father
in um the play cymbalene and he wrote about his his difficult relationship with his own daughter
and uh it was just a very powerful piece because it was focused on a phone call that he had with his
daughter where he was trying to connect with her and having difficulty with that and I think
what it what it did for for him was that it allowed him to process that and also to be seen
and and heard and in terms of what was important to him for us to recognize that and also for him
to feel that he was not alone because other guys uh heard that and said you know talked about
the difficulty of connecting with their children uh while in prison so it's that sharing of stories
that reminds us of our common humanity that allows us to express empathy to one another and uh that
that can be very healing when when we're we're heard with empathy yeah yeah I absolutely love it
because when you think about it as educators you know when we learn to share our story especially if
maybe we're you know seen as or believe even that what we have to share is not worth offering
right so there's something really empowering about sharing story there's something really
confidence building about it there's something more than just acting and not to say that just
acting I think acting is so important but they're the way you're describing it it's like
it's acting it's being an artist it's also authoring and it's those like three a's of it the
acting right the acting the artistry the authoring like what does it mean to be an author
you know I love that dimension so it's not just you know people incarcerated uh folks doing
place that's part of it which is a beautiful thing for anyone who's acted and been in a player
performed a play but being able to to find oneself within it and connect it to their authoring
and sharing their story right I love this uh Dr. Shailer um so many things I bet Jacob may have
some questions too but if you're a listener you you're probably wondering where can I learn more
about this like where how can I connect especially so many local listeners you know around
there Jonathan tell us a little bit more about like like how to get involved where to learn more
just how can a listener connect so the most direct way to connect is just to email me with your
with your questions uh or your interest uh and we could take it from there my email is s-h-a-i-l-o-r
I think the name is on the screen and uh at uwp that's for the University of Wisconsin Parkside
uwp.edu and uh I will respond I promise and also if you want to look into it uh we have a website
it's uh Shakespeare Prison Project that's all um one string and lowercase obviously
and dot com so Shakespeare Prison Project dot com
Johnny I've got something more to share here at the end of the uh episode as we're
we're we're closing up I've got a question and then uh and before that I'll just have a nice
glowing comment for uh Dr. Shailer I don't think that anybody who ever left one of his classes left
it saying oh darn it I have to do this assignment or I have to do this it's such a chore to do this
stuff uh Dr. Shailer always open always sharing uh we've talked on this show about the teachers
that inspire us and why they do so and part of it that we all agreed on was that when teachers
connect with you as a person they treat you as a partner in your education instead of uh you know
as a task they need to fulfill uh that's you to a t-ser so thank you very much you're my favorite
professor I've ever had and uh very happy to have you here um with the Shakespeare Prison Project
I hear about three groups of people and we've talked a lot about one of those groups which is
the prisoners or the incarcerated people and how this project benefits them but there's two other
groups of people uh one of them is your students who help in this uh people who come from the outside
to help and then the third would be you as the person putting in this together could you tell us
how the Shakespeare Prison Project benefits those other two groups of people
well sure um the you know I've I've brought uh UW Parkside students in and um
news headline I um I'm now a professor emeritus at the University of Wisconsin Parkside so
I don't actually have students there right now but I am uh an adjunct faculty member for
Marquette University and so I do bring those students in and um I think uh you know very simply one
of the most important thing that happens with bringing students in is that they
they see what goes on behind prison walls and they see the humanity of the the men that we're
working with that's the big the biggest thing and unfailingly I hear from the students who have come
in that they are in awe of the men's um honesty openness uh and intelligence earnestness and um
intellectual ability which is often stunning and um so that's good for them and then for me
uh I can't imagine what would my life would be without doing this this is really at the center of
my passion uh is is working with an underserved community like like these incarcerated men
I do similar work with uh mindfulness meditation now I um meet with a group in prison through the
the Wisconsin prison uh mindfulness initiative and uh I've also worked at Racine Youthful offender
Correctional Facility where I tried a course called Shakespeare for the Soul and I'm kind of tinkering
with that one to see what shape it might take the next time around but uh for me it's uh the thing
that's most important about teaching is service to the community and this is to me the most
uh powerful way that I can I can deliver that
that's awesome thank you Dr. Schaler uh for me just saying uh I'm a big fan so thank you for being
here uh Dr. Johnny Lupinacci Dr. Tim Slecker tasked with me with bringing cool guests on the show
so I've been working on Matt Damon's mom and you so far I've got you wow so I feel good about
the future prospects uh i'm 50 uh hit in 500 here uh and Johnny it's your i love age yeah
I love it uh well you you came in with a slam dunk on this one uh Jacob thanks for bringing Dr.
Schaler to busted pencils and Dr. Schaler thank you for busted pencils with us here today and
for all the works you do it's been awesome i just great to meet you uh Dr. Johnny and uh
Jacob great to see you uh thanks so much for your for your gracious hosting it's been
been a blast and now it's time for your moment of zen
to be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic it is based on the fact that human history
is a history not only of cruelty but of also of compassion sacrifice courage and kindness
thank you for listening to busted pencils class in session today and you could always grab great
podcasts like this one just search busted pencils on apple podcasts spotify and of course
you can always find us on the civic media website or at busted pencils dot com and hey don't
forget to find us throughout the week every Monday Wednesday and Friday with home rooms
class in session and always loads upon to wrap up the work week on Fridays with producer Jacob's
choice episodes every Friday and listen up pencil busters you can absolutely always catch us
on the Saturday broadcast at three p.m. central time across all the civic media network stations
for one hour of your favorite the look collar scholars
them and johnny and keep busted pencils
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