When the 18-year-old watched two friends participating in a Baltimore Center Stage workshop of theater games for incarcerated teens, he became visibly uneasy.
As one of the young performers in the Baltimore City Juvenile Justice Center thrust a fist into the air to depict a power pose, the teen shifted from one foot to the other. When the other performer was asked to portray helplessness and curled into a fetal position, he looked away, allowing his long dreadlocks to partly obscure his face.
But eventually, the teen met the eyes of the game’s facilitator, Center Stage Artistic Director Stevie Walker-Webb.
“I am feeling stressed,” the 18-year-old said. “It’s not normal for me to play a game where you show your emotions. You don’t want people to think you’re weak.”
He paused and then continued: “I hate the fact that people won’t say things to lift each other up. They bring each other down because they feel down themselves.”
That insight is the whole point of the Juvenile Justice Drama Club, a pilot program run by Center Stage that works with boys ages 13 to 18. The Baltimore Sun isn’t identifying the incarcerated youths because they are in the custody of the juvenile justice system for crimes they are accused of committing as minors, and those records are sealed by law.
The theater games might look like, well, fun and games. But they have a deeper purpose — to help the teens develop empathy, master critical thinking and learn to take responsibility for their actions.
“I grew up in a low-income community in Texas, and from the ages of 18 to 22, I attended more funerals than graduations,” Walker-Webb said.
“The arts saved my life. So it’s impossible for me not to feel for kids who are getting into trouble in this city and who could so easily slip through the cracks. It’s impossible not to hope that giving them access to the arts could have some small impact for good on their lives.
“This is my way of trying to help other little Stevies.”
The Juvenile Justice Center is a holding facility for teens who are awaiting sentencing for offenses ranging from firearms violations to assault and attempted murder. It is a serious place and looks like one, with windowless rooms consisting of beige cinderblock walls and overhead fluorescent lights.
Visitors are searched for a long list of contraband items, including soft drinks, that they must leave behind in the lobby before being buzzed through a series of locking doors.
The nine young men who took part in the drama club wore black slacks, maroon short-sleeved shirts and were monitored by at least four armed guards.
And for 90 minutes, none of that seemed to matter.
“To play, to laugh and to feel joy’
The teens played a game called “Whoosh,” in which they passed energy around the room; a name-switching game; and “Zip, Zap, Zop” in which they attempted to repeat a sequence of nonsense syllables in the proper order.
They laughed and shouted, joked with Center Stage facilitators Erin Pettigrew and Hope Hynson, and disqualified themselves from further play when they messed up.
“These young people have already been adultified by society,” Walker-Webb said. “We’re here to let them know that it’s OK for them to play, to laugh and to feel joy.”
Art-based programs have been part of U.S. prisons since at least 1870, according to Danielle Rousseau, an assistant professor of criminal justice at Boston University. But they recently rose again to the forefront of the national conversation with the release of the acclaimed film “Sing Sing,” which was nominated for three 2025 Academy Awards.
In addition to professional actors, “Sing Sing” featured real-life, formerly incarcerated men who were alumni of the Rehabilitation Through the Arts program at the maximum-security prison in Ossining, New York.
Studies have found that former inmates who study theater or music or who take up painting are less likely to get into trouble while behind bars and more likely to stay out of trouble once they leave.
In one widely cited experiment that was documented by the Prison Arts Resource Project, 177 randomly selected inmates who participated in arts programs in California prisons between 1980 and 1987 were 15.75% less likely than the general population of inmates to have violated their paroles six months after their release. One year after parole, the gap between the arts program participants and non-participants had widened to 24.6%. After two years, it had increased to 27.2%.
It could be that the inmates were motivated to turn their lives around long before they joined the arts workshops and classes. Regardless, they seem to view these sessions as useful tools that can help them become productive citizens.
As a former inmate named Gary told researchers at the Takoma Park-based Justice Arts Coalition: “After nearly 30 years of incarceration, the feelings of being forgotten weigh heavily.
“We are the disenfranchised, the marginalized, the cast-aways. True, as I often tell others, I did this to myself. I blame no one but me. Yet I long for a second chance, the opportunity to be re-interwoven back into the fabric of America from which my crime ripped me. [The program] is like a seamstress, stitching me and other prisoners back into the tapestry of society.”
Center Stage’s Juvenile Justice Drama Club is paid for with private donations. It is a key aspect of the $1 million “Next Act” fundraising campaign that the theater company launched in November.
“This program is an excellent example of how young people, even those charged with serious crimes, are responsive to creative outlets,” said Maryland public defender Robert Linthicum, chief of that agency’s Youthful Defendants Unit in Baltimore City.
“Art is therapeutic, and rehabilitative programs like this not only help the young person but the community as a whole.”
‘A powerful seed’
Now, Center Stage’s drama club works only with young men. But Walker-Webb hopes to launch a second theater workshop next year for incarcerated teenage girls.
Shauntia Lindsay, program services coordinator at the Department of Juvenile Services, said that the theater program “empowers young people to see themselves as positive forces for change in their lives and communities.”
“Through the arts, we’re giving them tools for expression, empathy, and transformation — creating meaningful pathways for young people to envision and work toward brighter futures,” Lindsay said.
The Next Act campaign is also attempting to raise money for phase two, a workforce development program that will take place at Center Stage.
“Once the kids are released, we hope to get them into paid apprenticeships,” Walker-Webb said, “where they can learn carpentry and marketing and other trades. This program is a powerful seed for the big tree we hope to someday grow.”
Everywhere Walker-Webb looks, he sees undeveloped talent, young men with the potential to be a force for good in the world. The teen with the dreadlocks, for example, is so smart and self-aware, he said.
Walker-Webb also pointed out another participant, a teen in a tan cap who demonstrated formidable focus. Generation Z is thought to be notorious for its short attention span. Not this member.
When he plays “Zip Zap Zop,” he quickly dispatches every other teen in the circle — and nearly all of the Center Stage staff — except for the more experienced Pettigrew. Even then, the outcome is so close that victory is only decided by a round of “Rock, Paper Scissors.” (The win goes to Pettigrew.)
After the workshop ended, the teen in the tan cap said that when he attended Mergenthaler Vocational-Technical High School, the atmosphere wasn’t conducive to learning.
“People were getting stabbed and shot at school,” he said. “I did not want to go there anymore.”
He dropped out but drifted and ended up in jail on a weapons charge.
Now 18, he hopes to put his time in juvenile detention to better use and has begun studying for his high school equivalency degree. He plans to enlist in the Air Force or Marines after his release. He said the stability of a career in the armed forces appeals to him in part because of the health care and educational benefits it provides.
“If I was in the military,” he said, “the family I have now would be set up for life. So would my future family.
“They would be so proud of me.”
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