Justice is not blind. Let’s do something about it.

OFF THE RECORD: Acts of Restorative Justice is a theatrical intervention aimed directly at the American Criminal Justice System and a call for audiences to activate their activism and stoke the fires of change. Invoking magic, mysticism, hard-facts, and fun games, this performance will help you build your tool kit to take the necessary next steps toward fostering systemic transformation.

Created by former HARP artist and recent Guggenheim Fellow James Scruggs in collaboration with national criminal justice advocate Thomas Giovanni, OFF THE RECORD is directed by Michael Rohd, the founder/director of the Co-Lab for Civic Imagination at the University of Montana.

ABOUT THE LEAD ARTIST: James Scruggs is a writer, performer, producer, screenwriter, who creates large-scale topical, theatrical, multi-media and virtual work focused on inequity or gender politics. In 2018, he created a site-specific immersive, interactive, satirical work commissioned by The High Line, …”MELT!”. He was awarded a 2015 MAP Grant and a 2016 Creative Capital Grant, to create 3/Fifths. Performed in May 2017, it was a fully immersive, interactive ethno-theme park, exploring race and racism called SupremacyLand. His November 2017, “3/Fifths Trapped in a Traveling Minstrel Show” was about how unarmed black men are still feared and legally killed. It received an Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Fringe Production in Boston. He recently produced and performed a virtual piece exploring the limited choices that people trapped in the World Trade Center were faced with, called “Severe Clear.” James Scruggs is an active member of The Filmshop Writers Den and the Harlem TV Writers Group. He was selected as one of 18 writers to bring an original theatrical work to The Apollo in the Spring of 2022. He is currently working on a theatrical/social justice piece, “Off The Record,” where effects of mass incarceration are confronted head-on. In 3 cities, NYC, Boston, and Tampa, Fl. 3-5 BIPOC with criminal records will be identified, paired with a lawyer and have their records expunged, and their stories will be shared theatrically. James Scruggs has a BFA in Film from the School of Visual Arts. www.jamesscruggs.com.