Project Description

Agents & Assets, an investigation into the advent of the U.S. crack epidemic, was remounted in Detroit with four performances and postshow discussions. The show, which was originally developed and produced in Los Angeles in 2001, was recast for the Detroit audience using a combined cast of LAPD members and Detroit residents from communities that had been heavily impacted by drugs and drug policy.

Five of the eight Detroit cast members were program participants and staff members from the Mariner's Inn, a residential drug treatment program in central Detroit. The project was developed during a month-long residency as a means of achieving significant local community involvement. Performances and dialogues attracted a diverse audience that included the recovery community, the Detroit theater and arts community, drug policy activists, students, community residents from the Cass Corridor area of Detroit, peace activists, and others concerned with the issues presented in the play.

LAPD timed the residency to build public awareness of the issue of treatment vs. incarceration of nonviolent drug offenders; an issue scheduled to be addressed in the November 5, 2003, election. Organizers hoped that the company's efforts would directly enter into the public discourse as people thought about how to vote on the issue. While no one actually got to vote on the issue (because it was knocked from the ballot), it remained in the forefront of the public eye. The governor of Michigan signed legislation just before he left office in January that helped return sentencing discretion to the judiciary but left untouched stacked sentences, life sentences, and many other areas in need of reform. From this, LAPD learned that something they thought was strategic—scheduling the residency directly in front of the vote on the initiative—ultimately was beyond their control. However, it also became clear that the issue of drug policy reform is a long, protracted struggle that would continue to build momentum in the public consciousness. This ultimately gave the artists more flexibility in thinking how they might contribute to the debate through their residencies.

Another outcome of the project was the beginning of a "recovery theater," a theater group comprising people in recovery in Detroit who work together to learn theater craft and develop and present theater within the inner-city Detroit area. The Drug Policy Forum of Michigan initiated an ongoing series of community dinners that include and involve a greater number of members from communities severely impacted by drugs and drug policy in their organizing efforts.

The text of Agents & Assets is a March 18, 1998, hearing transcript from the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (the committee charged with the oversight of the government's intelligence agencies). The allegations in question in this session were made in a 1996 series of articles by journalist Gary Webb in the San Jose Mercury News, which alleged CIA involvement in crack cocaine trafficking into the Los Angeles area.

Civic Engagement/Dialogue Activities
Each performance was followed by a discussion on drug policy and approaches to recovery from addiction, including different models and metaphors (the current prohibition and military models, as well as proposed public health models that emphasize treatment rather than incarceration) for dealing with the ravages of drugs and drug addiction. These discussions started with presentations from scholars, recovery professionals, drug policy reform advocates, community leaders, and politicians, followed by general discussions with audience members. The emphasis was to create a discussion in which all present could speak as citizens on an even footing.

In designing the dialogue, LAPD collaborated with Peter Sellars's producing group, Old Stories: New Lives, which had co-produced the public conversations and panels in the Los Angeles production of Agents & Assets. The Michigan-based Prison Creative Arts Program (PCAP) worked with the company to construct the panels and involve Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM) and Citizens Alliance on Prisons & Public Spending (CAPPS) in the planning process as well. Ron Allen of Urban Community Visionaries carried on an ongoing dialogue with LAPD Director John Malpede, leading to the formulation and construction of the panels and public conversations. The result was a profound series of public conversations that convened speakers and topics for discussion that have particular resonance in the host community and provided audiences with a broad context for discussing current as well as alternative policies.

Information Sources
Los Angeles Poverty Department Agents & Assets report