Shakespearean Dreams for a New Prison

The chapter outlines the current state of Prison Shakespeare in Italy and then focuses on a particular theatre project, “A Dream in BeKKa”, based on Shakespeare’s "A Midsummer Night’s Dream" and involving a group of university students and Puntozero Teatro, a non-profit youth theatre company working inside the “Cesare Beccaria” Juvenile Detention Centre in Milan. This case study shows how Prison Shakespeare is relevant not only to the inmates/actors inside the detention centre, but also to our students. Inmates and students on stage learn to deconstruct the commonplaces of a prison, a place that constantly reminds you of who you are, thus preventing any possible metamorphosis. They learn to understand their own potentiality and opportunity for change. Indeed, the theme of metamorphosis, which is at the heart of "A Midsummer Night’s Dream", functions as a powerful metaphor for the process that both the inmates/actors and the students/performers experience during the workshop, the rehearsals, and the staging of their work.