Sharing Gratitude
Juneteenth celebration at Mayo Street Arts in Portland, June 17, 2026. From top left: Hassan Hassan and A. Cuba Jackson; Hassan Hassan, Skye Gosselin, and Stacy Perez; MOJOSUDAN; Samuel James; the audience joins performers in song; and the Juneteenth performers along with MIO staff, board, and friends. Photos by Caroline Burns.
Continuing to Reflect on Juneteenth
We’re full of gratitude for the incredible communities that came together for this year’s Juneteenth events in Lewiston and Portland. Thank you to all who came out for music, story, film, original performance, and dialogue.
A Message from Noah
Clockwise from top right: At the University of Michigan with the cast of Love Is Alternatives to Incarceration in 2018, in Maine’s Bold Coast with the Theater Facilitation Team in 2022, at Lewiston Middle School in 2023 with students from Lewiston and Portland, and at SPACE in Portland performing Broken Clock in 2025.
When I walked into a Maine Inside Out open mic in May 2016, I recognized something that I had been searching for: how theater could animate social change. In college, theater inspired me to be more vulnerable and connected. I felt its potential for collective impact. At the open mic, I experienced how MIO was using theater to build relationships, share important truths, and invite everyone to risk a deeper vulnerability and more courageous imagination for the sake of social change. I was all in.
In MIO’s style of theater there are no scripts, pre-assigned roles, or directors. There are no props, no tech, and often no “real” stage. We begin with our bodies, group agreements, a toolkit of games and activities, and the shared goal of creating a play in about 12 weeks. Any MIO group will tell you that creating a play from scratch is hard. It requires persistence, vulnerability, and courage.
MIO’s style of theater means saying yes to a process that is embodied and collaborative.
It means participating as a leader and a follower, and trusting others to do the same.
It means speaking out and finding creative ways to approach conflict.
It means creating something that is both personally and collectively meaningful.
It means holding each other accountable and having each other’s backs.
It means keeping things safe without relying on coercion and control.
Fundamentally, the process is to discover each next action that builds trust and invites collaboration. Because the more deeply we see each other, the bigger we can dream together.
For the last decade, this has been my work. In prison units and public libraries, in middle schools and college campuses, on long car rides and in zoom meetings, on stages and in courthouses. In moments of tension, heart break, and celebration. While co-facilitating theater, responding to crises, mediating conflicts, co-creating organizational design, developing operating practices, and more. This way of working is foundational to how MIO approaches everything.
I am grateful for the mentorship to learn from a lineage of artists for social change; for being part of a team that prioritizes collaboration, reflection, and learning; for the grace to make many mistakes; and the encouragement to keep going. I’m grateful for the play and laughter and the joy of seeing people - really seeing people - and how amazing each of us is. I’m grateful for the perseverance, courage, and tenderness I’ve experienced when it has felt like the world is falling apart. And I'm grateful for the moments of beauty, dignity, and grace - breathlessly unexpected, humanly imperfect, and unscriptable - that emerge when we choose to create together with no script and no director.
My last day at MIO is August 14. I start this fall at Boston University School of Law as a Public Interest Scholar. I plan to be in Maine regularly and would love to stay in close touch with friends and collaborators. You can reach me at noah.d.bragg@gmail.com.
MIO on Summer Break for July
July is a month for Maine Inside Out staff to take time off to rest, restore, and reflect - and we are deeply grateful for the community that makes this possible. You’ll still see us around, and when you do, please know our hearts are wide open! We'll return to our usual schedules in August, renewed and ready.
Thank you!
Thank you to all who helped us raise more than $70,000 in June toward our goal of $100,000 to help ensure that Maine Inside Out’s youth programming in Lewiston can continue, and that we can bring theater projects inside two Maine prisons this fall. With your support, playmaking will continue, and all of us will continue to have opportunities to come together, reckon with hard truths, and imagine new ways of being together. We look forward to the collective work ahead.
