Rachel's House

commissioned for Traverse Theatre's Dream Play: Scenes from a Play I'll Nevr Write, Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2012. In association with Lower Lights, Ohio, USA.

This idea is based on a series of interviews done with women at Rachel’s House, a rehab project for formerly incarcerated women in Franklinton, Columbus, Ohio. Rachel’s House is unique amongst rehab projects in the USA, perhaps the world, in that it has an exceptionally low recidivist rate of just 14%. It receives no state funding because it is run by a faith-based charity. The Director of Rachel’s House is a former participant and prisoner herself with a 30 year record of drug addiction and associated felonies.

Nicola McCartney spent two weeks there in June 2012. This is a taste of what she experienced. All of the stories are real, but the three characters are composites of eight women, all of whom had been formerly incarcerated, with whom the writer worked over an intensive two-week period, to help them piece together the fragments of their lives as they started over again in Rachel’s House.