PMA Professor Bruce Levitt and Multidisciplinary Visual Artist Isaac I. Scott were featured in an interview called The Social Mirror: An Interview with Bruce Levitt and Isaac Scott in Little Patuxent Review. The interview was conducted by Ann Bracken for the review’s Summer 2025 edition, Issue 38, entitled “Exploring Literature and the Arts.”
Levitt, a theatre professor has been working with the Phoenix Players Theatre Group (PPTG), a project started by group of incarcerated men at Auburn Correctional Facility, for the last fourteen years. Scott, who was formerly incarcerated, has talked about the power of the arts to be transformative. In 2014 he started an organization called The Confined Arts (TCA) “a collection of exhibition and poetry events organized by his company, Isaac’s Quarterly. Scott also led an art workshop at PMA in 2024.
In this wide-ranging interview, Scott and Levitt talk about their backgrounds in art and “art as a tool of transformation.”
“I think my work in Shakespeare and my work in the theater in general inspired a deep interest in human behavior and how human behavior manifests itself,” said Levitt. “That understanding of human behavior has been strengthened and enriched by my work with the Phoenix Players Theater Group. The depth of our work and the complexity of the issues and the trauma that incarcerated people live with create a dynamic space rich with ideas for theatrical pieces.”
“During my incarceration,” said Scott, “art was the means by which I was able to financially provide for myself as well as psychologically withstand the day-to-day torture of imprisonment. Hearts and flowers gave me the strangest peace each time I drew them. They also forced me to reconsider what I viewed as masculine. My process helped me to reconcile a more sensitive and caring side of myself.”
“If we could treat and take greater care of the children throughout all of the socioeconomic spectrums,” said Levitt, “if we could take greater care with the people who return home from incarceration, we could go a long way toward reducing harm in our society.”
“Through visual arts, poetry, theater, and music, stories of injustice, resilience, and humanity are brought to the forefront,” said Scott, “challenging dominant narratives about prison and incarcerated people and inviting viewers to empathize with experience different from their own.”
Read more about Isaac I. Scott’s event at PMA
Learn more about The Little Patuxent Review.
