The Dogwatcher
The inmates of a Georgia state prison tell the stories of how they got there to the man trying to save their adult literacy program.
My father worked in adult literacy while I was growing up in many locations - the local pool hall, libraries, but the most memorable was his decade teaching at a federal prison. When education programs started being cut en masse across the country, I felt called to write about the value of these programs and spread awareness of the threat they're under. While the play is fictional, it's rooted in my experience of watching him help people learn to read and write, get their GEDs, and have a better shot at finding work and building a new life after their release.
Characters
1 actor
Setting
Federal prison in rural Georgia. The present.
History
May 2011 - Reading with Coyote Rep Theatre
“Like, when you’re just around other brokeass motherfuckers, you don’t feel like a brokeass motherfucker. You just feel, you know, normal. But when you see all that? See what someone else got, a kind of rich you ain’t ever seen before, it’s like...you know how you have a bad dream and can’t stop thinking about it the next day? That wallet was my bad dream.”