Mud Brothers: A theatre workshop transforms lives beyond prison walls

CHICAGO, Ill. —The house in Englewood was bare but charming. Even with only a table, some chairs, painting supplies, and built-in furnishings, the place felt alive and full of anticipation. Something was coming, and Brian Beals was the envoy, readying the house for its new life. 

He doesn’t live there. No one does—or ever will. Instead, it will serve as Beal’s office, his dream and his life’s work rolled into one.

In 1988, Beals, then 22, was falsely convicted of a shooting in Englewood that killed a 6-year-old. He moved between maximum to low security prison systems in Illinois, including the Dixon, Pontiac, and finally, Robinson Correctional facilities. 

While at Dixon, a prison warden gave the green light on a project for black history month spearheaded by Beals—a peer educator—and others. The Dixon Theatre Workshop was born.

No training. No lighting. No sound system. Multiracial. Well-behaved or rule-breakers. Then it was shut down by the prison administration. Raw and welcoming, the now-shuttered Dixon Theatre Workshop was an outlet to find therapeutic release and discipline through performing arts.  Its spirit will live on at a home on Chicago’s South Side, where Beals will continue the series under a new name: the Mud Theater Project.

Getting started at Dixon Correctional Facility

Darius Franklin co-founded the Dixon endeavor. 

The group’s first play was about identity, titled “Who Are You?” To “become this caricature of a really tough prison guy” or transform? That was the production’s grounding dilemma for its audience, Beals said.

The prison’s seating capacity was 300 people. Actors accommodated multiple encore presentations. Beals and the players received multiple requests for encores. 

Franklin, who found community through the performing arts, is currently the Mud Theatre’s project manager. He hopes to bridge the gap between currently and formerly incarcerated citizens.

Art imitates life

Artistically, the actors experimented. Plays coupled with rap concerts. Spoken word sessions with talkbacks. 

“It’s a form of journalism,” critical because some penitentiaries statewide removed prison newspapers, Beals said. For incarcerated people, artistic and literature programs are slim. In 2019, Stateville Correctional Facility, for instance, began removing books from the prison library.

Theatre allowed Dixon thespians to hold a mirror between life behind bars and conditions in their hometowns that put them there.

For Darrion Benson, currently staying at North Lawndale Adult Transition Center on the city’s West Side, he discovered a passion for poetry. “Because I was forced to stuff down a lot of who I am,” Benson said, “what I’ve come to know as my purpose wasn’t revealed until then.”

Art tethered crew members together. They became brothers, or ‘Mud Brothers,’ as Franklin likes to call them.

Toussaint Daniels, also at NLATC, entered the prison system as a teenager. Beals gave him the fatherly advice he always wanted. In turn, Daniels broke out of his illusions. With Beals’ help, he rediscovered his humanity, he said in a statement.

“Broken Pieces” explored the impact violence has on two tight-knit friends. 

“What would it look like to try to fix the relationship,” Beals asked, “and what would it look like for the people who had an interest in keeping that relationship torn apart?”

Backlash and future ties

A spoken word and rap-based production, “The Story of Violence,” told the story of Black disenfranchisement. It spoke to issues of race and class, such as the classroom-to-prison pipeline, unequal education, and the Black Belt in the American South. 

 Immediately afterward, Dixon officials permanently shut down the troupe. According to Beals, officers found the production racist. Prison culture changed under the Trump administration, Beals said, adding he didn’t believe the production would’ve halted prior to.

“Trump unleashed something in those small towns that came into the prison in the way that they policed us in prison. And that’s why it ended,” Beals said. 

In 2023, Beals was exonerated. He’s got big plans for that home on Parnell Ave.

The forthcoming Mud Theater Project will serve as a maker’s space for actors. The upstairs rooms will serve as a haven for formerly incarcerated people in need of space to help with their re-entry process.

Barbecues in the yard. Rooms dotted with mind maps and storyboards. Beals hopes to expand the workshop to other vacant properties on the block one day, should it grow large enough. 

“There’s gonna come a time when they’re gonna have a project, or they’re gonna need some language, they’re gonna need some lyrics,” Beals said. “They’re gonna need some poetry, and we’re gonna be there for them to help them strengthen their project. That’s the way we work in prison. That’s the way we want to work out here.”

Even now, with some of their number still incarcerated, Dixon theatre alumni remain connected. Yoel Davis, who served as musical director, asked Beals to be the best man at his wedding after his own release. 

Mud is a soft, earthy matter that kids turn into childhood delight. But it’s also messy. And if you fall in too deep, you can become trapped.

“As I looked out at the world, I was able to see the entire world was stuck in the mud,” Davis wrote in a text message to the HWH. “Some were even immersed in it. The thing about mud is that it’s difficult to get unstuck once you’re in it. In some cases, you may need someone to pull you out.”