Taking Hostages: Staging Human Rights

Professor of Drama and Performance at Queen Mary, University of London, and Director of People's Palace Projects, a research center in applied performance with offices in London and Rio de Janeiro. Since 1991, he has been working in Brazil where he established the Staging Human Rights program. In the past two years the project has been implemented with over 3,000 prisoners and prison staff across Brazil. He has directed three international conferences on theatre and development for The British Council. As a theatre director, his productions include British premiers of works by Kurt Weill, Noel Greig, and Edward Bond, and he was formerly a director with Gay Sweatshop. In Brazil he has directed a number of Shakespeare productions in Portuguese, both in prison and on the professional stage. He has a studio theatre named after him inside the prison complex of the Federal District of Brasília.