Prison Performing Arts; by Agnes Wilcox, Artistic Director

Each year Prison Performing Arts provides arts opportunities to more than 4000 incarcerated youth and adults. Prison Performing Arts is a 21-year-old, multi-discipline, literacy and performing arts program that serves incarcerated adults and children at St. Louis City Juvenile Detention Center, Hogan Street Regional Youth Center, Northeastern Correctional Center (NECC) in Bowling Green, MO, and Women’s Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center (WERDCC) in Vandalia, MO.

Prison Performing Arts promotes learning through the arts, channeling creative energies in constructive ways and using the arts to provide an environment for self-discipline, commitment, and teamwork. They use the arts to help inmates learn the life skills that prepare them to become productive, creative, and law abiding citizens. Prison Performing Arts is the only organization in Missouri with the specific mission of creating and presenting performing arts in correctional institutions. 97% of the people incarcerated in Missouri will return to our communities; Prison Performing Arts uses the performing arts to help prepare them for that transition.