Last month the NY Times had a story about a theater company in Brooklyn which had been running a 10 week improv program for the police department since 2014. The goal has been help officers engage in more constructive interactions. Due to staffing shortages, the police commissioner said they wouldn’t officers to participate this year.
Despite this disappointing news, I saw this program as an example of how arts organizations can provide valuable training opportunities to their communities.
For 10 years, Mr. Greiss directed “To Protect, Serve and Understand,” an acting troupe born out of the killing of Eric Garner in 2014. It paired seven officers with seven civilians, and the group went through acting exercises meant to help both sides see each other’s humanity and to create, as Mr. Greiss called it, “a theater of empathy.”
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Officers go through exercises with strangers — such as singing and role playing — that force them to examine their feelings about their work and interactions on the street that can lead to resentment, distrust and fear. Officers said they often used the improv exercises to talk about stress and the frustrations of working in a paramilitary environment. One officer said he learned how to stay calm in the face of screaming protesters. Another was finally able to open up about a shooting.
A few people interviewed for the article suggest that paying officers to take performance classes at a time when detectives are having to put on uniforms to patrol the streets is not a good use of funds. However others pointed out that the program has helped gradually change the perception of the police and garner a higher degree of trust. One officer who went through the program is quoted saying “Anybody who calls it just theater — no. This is real life. It’s a healing circle. It’s more than theater.”
