Rutgers Theater Project Supports Formerly Incarcerated People Reentering Society

Ritual4Return is the brainchild of alumnus Kevin Bott, director of Rutgers Arts Online

After incarceration, how can people heal from trauma, shame and the feeling that society no longer wants them? Kevin Bott, who oversees the online division of Mason Gross School of the Arts, has spent 16 years answering that question.

He is the creator of a project that works with people coming home after incarceration to develop a healing and transformative ritual through theatrical storytelling that helps them move on from their experiences.

A 1996 Rutgers graduate, Bott founded the initiative called Ritual4Return while completing his doctorate in educational theater at New York University (NYU). He recently introduced the project at Mason Gross in collaboration with the New Jersey Scholarship and Transformative Education in Prison Consortium (NJ-STEP), which offers for-credit courses inside New Jersey state prisons and then after re-entry at several universities within the state, including Rutgers. Ritual4Return is now offered at Rutgers as a two-class series, with one course open to all undergraduates and both available to those who have been incarcerated.

The theater-based course for students returning home after incarceration culminates in a public rite of passage in the black box theater at Newark’s New Jersey Performing Arts Center. The next ritual, which is sold out, is set for Dec. 8 and will include the first cohort of students to complete the project since it was added to the Rutgers curriculum.

The success of Ritual4Return was highlighted this fall when Bott was named by the New Jersey Council for the Humanities as the winner of the 2024 Katz Prize, celebrating excellence in public humanities.

“I'm thrilled to be recognized for this initiative that positively affects people's lives,” he said. “The efforts of these returning citizens create an impact that ripples out to families, communities and society.”

Baiyinah Shewmake, who left prison in 2020, appreciated the chance to address some feelings associated with childhood trauma after Bott recruited her to participate in Ritual4Return early in 2024. Now, she gives back by participating in homecoming rituals – including the one set for Dec. 8 – and project demonstrations. She’s found that each one is different, offering something new to contemplate.

“Kevin is really, really, really dedicated. He lives this and through this,” said Shewmake, a Hunterdon County resident who was incarcerated for drug, gun and aggravated assault charges and now works as a substance abuse counselor. “I also appreciate the network of wonderful women I’ve met through Ritual4Return. My philosophy is that it takes a village to live a life, whether you're a child or an adult. You’ve just got to find your village, and these people are mine.”

Offered through Mason Gross, courses related to Ritual4Return are held at Rutgers-Newark. A seven-week, two-credit course, “Workshop Topics Theater: Reentry as a Rite of Passage,” is open to any Rutgers undergraduate, regardless of campus affiliation, and focuses on literature from across criminology and sociology that demonstrates the power of rites of passage to restore civic identity after incarceration. The course may soon be available online.

Students who were previously incarcerated must take that short course as a pre- or co-requisite to a longer, single-credit Mason Gross theater class, “Project Work: Reentry as a Rite of Passage Lab.” In that class, participants in the NJ-STEP program spend a semester preparing for the homecoming ritual by crafting and performing stories related to their incarceration, which may include aspects of their childhood, their time behind bars and their experiences after release. Students can participate whether their incarceration ended recently or many years ago.

Bott found his inspiration for Ritual4Return while pursuing his master’s degree in educational theater at NYU. When he learned that one of his professors was driving to a prison to teach a workshop, he asked if he could observe. A year later, as a doctoral student, Bott began creating original theater works in prisons, leading him to wonder how that approach might support people upon their re-entry to society.

He quickly realized that such a project could satisfy an unmet need, as returning citizens and their loved ones often struggle with issues of unresolved trauma, shame and other emotions that have been pent up for years, even decades. Since then, Bott has found that the homecoming ritual can pave the way for overdue conversations that can help families heal.

During the ritual, participants perform scripted stories, participate in chants, drumming and dances and make vows about their lives ahead. Audience members join in through songs, writing about experiences for which they need to forgive or be forgiven and standing in support of their loved ones as they make their vows. The five- or six-hour event ends with a shared meal.

“A common sentiment from project graduates is that they feel unburdened,” Bott said. “There's a deep fear that, if they reveal themselves, it's going to confirm that they don't belong in society, and having the exact opposite experience can give them a sense of transformation.”

In addition to supporting healing in individuals and families, the initiative acquaints audiences with the fact that many who end up incarcerated were born into choice-limiting circumstances, such as addiction, poverty, unemployment and familial dysfunction. It also informs attendees about efforts to change policy around mass incarceration.

The project may soon expand beyond New Jersey. At a recent conference of state humanities councils, Bott met teams from eight states that want to launch similar re-entry initiatives. He hopes to train them at Rutgers-Newark, possibly as soon as next summer.

Bott has a long relationship with Rutgers. He earned a bachelor’s degree in Italian from the university and has been director of Rutgers Arts Online — the university’s first and largest provider of online courses — since January 2022. With about 50 courses offered each school year, the online arts division caters to thousands of students, most of them non-arts majors who live on campus or commute.

Bott has expanded the program beyond its core of history- and theory-based courses and toward dynamic experiences that range from photography to theatrical character development to a project-based environmental arts class.

“We're pushing the boundaries of what online arts education can be,” he said.

Previous to his role at Mason Gross, Bott served as the dean for civic engagement at Wagner College in New York City, and before that, as associate director of the national arts and humanities consortium Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public Life.

Along the way, he received funding from Humanities New York to create community-based theater pieces focusing on race, justice and democracy. For his role with Ritual4Return, he was chosen as a 2019-2020 joint fellow in criminal justice by A Blade of Grass in partnership with the David Rockefeller Foundation.

Through every experience, Bott has remained committed to the ideal of fostering new art and artists.

“Art is an opportunity to make something in the world, if only for its beauty,” he said. “Engagement with the arts makes more whole, empathetic, compassionate, thoughtful, curious, interesting human beings, and that's the world I want to live in.”