Maine Inside Out is an arts and social justice organization focused on the holistic reintegration of community members who have served time in the criminal justice system. Formed in 2007, Maine Inside Out is a collaborative project built on its founders’ diverse backgrounds in social work, counseling, education, creative writing, and the performing and visual arts.

Teaching Artists Tessy Seward, Margot Fine and Chiara Liberatore are the founding members and teaching artists of Maine Inside Out.

Tessy Seward

Tessy has been writing, directing and performing in Maine for fifteen years, most recently with her Portland-based company, ROiL, which she co-founded in 2004. Tessy co-wrote and performed in ROiL's first production, Close to Home, an exploration of anti-gay discrimination in Maine communities that toured the state and was performed in more than 30 towns across Maine in 2005 to educate voters about the referendum on civil rights. She currently collaborates with other artists to create and perform original work, and she works with ROiL as well as Maine Inside Out to develop and facilitate theater workshops for at-risk youth. Some of her previous Portland-based projects include work at Long Creek Youth Development Center, PROP’s Peer Leader program in Riverton Park, the Preble Street Teen Center and Portland High School. Tessy and other ROiL members spent time in Louisiana in 2005, 2006 and 2007 leading therapeutic theater workshops for resettled teens in Baton Rouge after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and Tessy co-facilitated a workshop for incarcerated women at the Maine Department of Corrections’ Women’s Reentry Center in the fall of 2008. Tessy has trained with Theater of the Oppressed founder Augusto Boal at the Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory in New York City. She has a Masters Degree in Counseling from the University of Southern Maine, with training in group facilitation, expressive arts therapy, multi-cultural counseling, non-violent communication, and crisis intervention strategies. She is currently a therapist in private practice. Tessy has a B.A. in English from Williams College.

Chiara Liberatore

Chiara has been facilitating theater workshops with incarcerated adults, youth and people in under-served communities for eleven years. She was a member of the Prison Creative Arts Project (PCAP) at the University of Michigan from1997-1999 and now serves on the PCAP National Advisory Board. During her time as a PCAP member, she facilitated theater workshops in 5 different correctional facilities to produce 9 original plays. During this time she also worked as a youth treatment specialist at Boysville, a residential facility for adjudicated males in Michigan. Since then she has worked in numerous youth settings using theater to create original plays and musicals. From 1999-2005 she lived in Chicago, where she worked for the not- for- profit, Music Theatre Workshop (MTW). MTW collaborated with youth institutions all over Chicago, bringing in arts curriculum to create original theater. Chiara focused on programs in the Cook County Juvenile Detention Center, Warrenville Youth Center, and the Better Boys Foundation in the North Lawndale community. In 2005, Chiara completed an internship at the Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory in New York City learning and using Boal techniques to create Forum theater. Since moving to Maine in 2006, Chiara has continued doing theater for social change work in Portland. Through Addverb Productions she co-directs Hear Our Stories, Know Our Names, a play written and performed by a group of people who have at one time been homeless and are currently living below the poverty level. Chiara has a B.A. from the University of Michigan.

Margot Fine

Margot is an activist and educator in Portland, Maine. She is trained as a Sexual Assault Response Services Advocate, in Motivational Interviewing, GLBTQ youth issues, Integrated Arts Education, Harm reduction, Crisis Intervention, Anti- Racist community organizing, and community food security. She also spent a year in training at McGeachey Hall's Psychiatric Out Patient Clinic at Maine Medical Center.

Margot worked as the Program Director for the Alternatives to Detention Program at Learning Works, supervising a program that focuses on therapeutic intervention and prevention for youth involved in the Juvenile Justice System. Margot has also worked for over three years with homeless and street-involved youth at Preble Street Teen Center. She has collaborated with youth to create Radical Acceptance, a quarterly arts and poetry magazine for marginalized youth voices, and worked on documentary film, photography, and visual art projects with homeless youth. Margot has worked with KIDS Legal Aid where she addressed the legal needs of low-income families and children by providing direct representation, consultations, and legal rights group trainings to youth in schools, homeless shelters, homes for teenage mothers, and youth involved in the criminal justice system. She has a B.A. from Bates College and a Masters of Social Work at the University of Southern Maine. Margot is currently a licensed social worker in the Greater Portland area.