Tearing Down Walls - Hope McIntyre Examines Theatre in Carceral Settings

Thu. Jul. 31, 2025

Hope McIntyre

Associate Professor, Hope McIntyre, has received a Major Research Grant to gather data on theatre programs in Canadian prisons, and in bordering U.S. states. This builds on McIntyre’s three years of teaching theatre in prison through the Walls to Bridges program. Walls to Bridges is a unique program, which merges incarcerated and campus-enrolled students to study together inside the prison walls. To date McIntyre has taught a variety of courses at Stony Mountain Institution and the Women’s Correctional Centre, including Applied Theatre, Playwriting and Producing a Play.

In February McIntyre traveled to work with University of Michigan’s Inside/Out prison program. Last month, she presented on her work at the Canadian Association for Theatre Research conference. She is also grateful to be in regular conversation with William Head on Stage on Victoria Island, who have been running a theatre company inside for over forty years. Ultimately, the goal is to pilot a prison theatre program in Manitoba.

This work builds on McIntyre’s twenty-five-year art practice of theatre for social change and community-based theatre, a highlight of which was creating the play “Jail Baby” (2013) with Cairn Moore after spending three years working with criminalized women.

Photo: Kayla Gordon