Lynn C. Woodward
Local Host Coordinator
405-664-1826
edlcwoodward@gmail.com
Kathy
McGregor, Project Director
The Prison Story Project
479-871-4875
tellervision@gmail.com
www.prisonstoryproject.com
On The
Row: A Staged Reading of
Stories From Arkansas’ Death Row
Christ Church Episcopal
10901 S. Yale Avenue
Tulsa, OK
Saturday, June 15,
2019
7:30 pm
Christ
Church Episcopal is hosting this presentation now because it is very timely
here in Oklahoma.
Currently,
Oklahoma holds 48 inmates on death row. Twenty inmates have exhausted their appeals and are waiting for DOC to
establish a new execution protocol. On
May 15, DOC Director Joe Allbaugh told The
Frontier that DOC was “getting closer every day” to acquiring a device to
resume executions. Executions have been
on a 4-year hiatus because of botched executions that gained national
attention.
SQ
776 is often cited as proof of majority support of the death penalty. In fact, less than half of all registered
voters in Oklahoma voted in favor of SQ 776. Currently, 11 states have Republican-sponsored death penalty repeal
bills under consideration.
Governor
Stitt and the Oklahoma Pardon and Parole Board may be making clemency decisions
soon. Christ Church Episcopal is
offering this opportunity to widen the conversation and help people see the
humanity also present on death rows.
The
Prison Story Project is a storytelling project that benefits the incarcerated. Inmates explore their truths through poetry, storytelling,
and creative writing.
From
May through October of 2016 The Prison Story Project was given unprecedented
access to the men on Arkansas’ Death Row at Varner Prison. There were 34 men on
the row at the time and 11 of those men chose to participate in the project.
The
inmates met with the volunteer team once a month in person on death row to
explore writing and storytelling concepts, and followed up by US Mail in
between visits.
A
staged reading of their work – On The Row – was developed and performed for the men on death row on October 8, 2016 and
has been touring the US since.
In
February, 2017, the Governor of Arkansas announced that the state would execute
eight men over ten days just after Easter. Four of the men that the Prison
Story Project served were on that list. Two of the men were given last minutes
stays and two were executed.
On The Row is touring to Tulsa thanks
to a generous grant from Mid-America Arts Alliance, Whiting Foundation for the
Humanities, and Episcopal Evangelism Society.
On Death Row Brochure
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