***(translated from Italian)

URBANIA, 11/24/2018 – Awarded to  Jean Trounstine and the  Gramsci International Prize for Theater in Prison  (third edition). The Award is organized by the European magazine “Catarsi-Theaters of Diversities” in collaboration with the Casa Natale Gramsci Association of Ales, the National Theater Critics Association and the International Theater Institute.

Jean Trounstine  is an American activist committed to recognizing the rights of women held in prisons around the world. She is the author and co-author of six books translated into various languages. Among these Shakespeare Behind Bars: The Power of Drama In A Women’s Prison, 2001, a world-famous guidebook that has paved the way for teachers, staff and magistrates who work directly in contact with the prison world. A fundamental testimony, useful to introduce into the prison system the use of the Theater and Literature as an effective tool for the education and reintegration of prisoners and prisoners in civil society.

Jean Trounstine taught and worked for over a decade at Framingham Women’s Prison; a female prison where she directed eight theatrical productions and where, with her work, she showed how thanks to the Literature and the Theater practiced in prison there is a substantial change in the life of the prisoners, because they are tools that offer a real hope, a moment of change and freedom.

The third edition of  the Gramsci International Prize for the Theater in Prison  took place in the context of the XIX Edition of the International Conference The Theaters of Diversity(underway in Urbania), organized as part of “Destini incrociati” National Theater Project in Prison by the AENIGMA THEATER International Center of Production and Research at the University of Urbino Carlo Bo and of the National Theater Coordination in Prison, with the support of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities – Entertainment Department, Marche Region – Department of Culture, with the Patronage of the Municipality of Urbania, of the University of Urbino Carlo Bo, of the Ministry of Justice – Department of the Penitentiary Administration – Provveditorato Regionale dell’Emilia Romagna and Marche, of the National Association of Theater Critics and of the Italian Center of International Theater Institute UNESCO, with the collaboration of the House District Supervision of Pesaro,of the Regional Theater Coordination in Carcere Marche, of the ANFFAS Fermignano-Urbino-Urbania and of the Labirinto Social Cooperative.