Lumpkin, GA, a town two-and-a-half hours southwest of Atlanta, is home to less than 1,000 residents – 891 to be exact, according to the 2020 census. It’s also home to the Stewart Detention Center, one of the largest immigration detention centers in the country.
This tiny town is the subject of playwright, actor, and Out of Hand Theater Associate Artistic Director Lee Osorio’s new play, “Prisontown.” Lumpkin is also Osorio’s hometown.
The show follows the “95 percent true story” about a writer who returns to Lumpkin to witness the barbarity of the nation’s immigration crisis and a small town torn by poverty and the prison industry. With the recent deaths of Mexican national Sanchaz Dominguez in ICE custody in Lovejoy, GA, and Renee Good in Minneapolis after being shot by an ICE agent, “Prisontown” is a timely exploration of the impact of anti-immigration sentiments and policies on all of us, immigrants or otherwise.
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Osorio got the idea to write the show after a conversation with his brother, who’s an immigration attorney.
“He texted me one day asking me, ‘Hey, how would you feel about marrying a gay, 25-year-old Mexican national who lost his DACA status because of a DUI?’ He, of course, was joking; he’s a good immigration attorney who would not defraud the U.S. government like that,” Osorio told Rough Draft. “But he was just frustrated that there was this person who had come to the states when he was very, very young, brought by his parents, and was going to get sent back to a country that he knew nothing about.”
This young man was being held in Stewart Detention Center, which opened in 2004 and can hold more than 1,700 detainees. Osorio’s brother relayed to him how the town had been completely changed by the opening of the detention center.
“The grocery store across the street, it’s now shut down,” he said. “The town square was nearly abandoned, and the thing that was keeping the whole town and the county alive was this detention center.”
This question of how facilities like Stewart impact those who live both inside of and in proximity to them is at the heart of “Prisontown.” In the one-man show, Osorio explores this through his personal lens as both a Lumpkin native and son of a Venezuelan immigrant.
“I was just thinking about how easily I could have ended up in any number of places in Lumpkin, either as a detainee or as a guard, if we hadn’t moved away,” he said. “…The whole system is so extractive and harmful to us in all ways that we may not always directly feed, but that are real and deeply felt in those places most proximal to the prisons themselves. The prisons are bad for detainees and immigrants, 100 percent. They’re also bad for all of us.”
“Prisontown” runs from Jan, 23 to April 5 as part of Out of Hand Theater’s Shows in Homes program. Instead of being performed on the traditional stage, the show will come into local Atlantans’ homes for 40 intimate and familiar performances. Venues include homes in Kirkwood, Decatur, Lenox, Buckhead, Virginia-Highland, Midtown, and Old Fourth Ward, all offered to the community by homeowners.
The program, born out of necessity since Out of Hand couldn’t afford a brick-and-mortar space, encourages a sense of community connectedness and empowers arts accessibility.
Each performance will be followed by a conversation facilitated by community partners El Refugio, an organization providing loved ones of Stewart detainees with a free place to stay and other support, and the ACLU, a legal civil liberties organization.
Osorio says he hopes to inspire audiences to support these organizations and other groups assisting immigrants while recognizing the humanity of all people. He also hopes “Prisontown” starts conversations, especially among people who don’t necessarily agree, and acts as a salve against divisiveness.
“The problem that we face right now is increasing violence across this country that takes many, many forms,” he said. “One of those forms is internal, it’s that hatred that becomes way too easy these days. How do we combat the violence within ourselves and our own thoughts?”
Tickets for “Prisontown” are available at outofhandtheater.com.
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