The New Jersey Prison Theater Cooperative is a committee that includes not only the 28 formerly incarcerated participants but also six theater professionals, who worked on the script's development. Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist, Truthdig columnist and host of the Emmy Awardwinning RT America show On Contact. He is the author of the bestsellers American Fascists and Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt, and was a National Book Critics Circle finalist for War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning. His most recent book is America: the Farewell Tour, published in 2018. He teaches in college credit courses in prisons in New Jersey.
""While the play's characters ring with authenticity, Caged never neglects its serious political messaging. The play illustrates Black lives in dialogue with a racist system, in which state power reinforces cycles of violence while moments of extraordinary integrity and bravery break through the cracks. Fifteen minutes before the play begins, a dimly lit stage reveals a barred cell. Inside, Shaky Brown, 'a gifted blues musician serving a life sentence, ' plays the blues. Throughout the play, his cell haunts the stage. Yet, his music--at once marginal and persistent, beautiful and full of grief--remains as well."" --Temperature Check, PEN America