We're All We Need: Theatre at Pelican Bay
Documentary Screening as part of Dell'Arte's 2025 Baduwa't Festival

For nearly ten years, Dell'Arte has worked with incarcerated individuals at Pelican Bay State Prison through its Prison Arts Theatre Program, offering in-person classes, workshops, and performance exchange events that foster self-expression, belonging, and personal growth through ensemble generated creation. The program continuously offers unique opportunities for participants and has brought in Dell’Arte’s MFA students, guest shows, an international exchange with Balinese artists via video during the COVID-19 lockdown, and various guest teaching artists for exchange with our program participants.

This new documentary focuses on some of those participants and gives voice to their experiences working together in the creative space to create a show called “The Variety Pack”, performed for an invited audience, and their perspectives on the humanizing impact of artistic expression.

A discussion will follow the film with an opportunity to have your thoughts shared with the participants featured in the film via written feedback. Zines created by program participants featuring their written work (poetry, monologues, and musings) will also be available for purchase as a fundraiser with all proceeds donated to the Pacific Redwoods Missing and Murdered Indigenous People’s Crisis Action fund on their behalf.