Broadway Advocacy Coalition and Columbia Law School are looking for artists from any discipline to collaborate with law students during a semester-long course titled The Theater for Change: Reimagining Justice Through Abolition, the latest collaboration to come out of the two organizations' multi-year partnership.

The course is set to run January 21–April 8, 2021, with artist participants receiving compensation for their work.

The program will answer nationwide calls for reform of the criminal justice system, particularly police and prisons, with curriculum that uses the arts to imagine and promote viable alternatives. Focusing on abolition, reimagining justice, and strengthening communities, the course will be informed by community leaders with first-hand knowledge of both fighting and feeling the effects of these broken systems.

The course will be led by Dria Brown, Zhailon Levingston, Nia Robinson, Alejo Rodriguez, Birtton Smith, Leia Squillace, and Susan Sturm.

Law students will collaborate with artists and community advocates to create performance pieces exploring paths to abolition, with an end goal of not only interdisciplinary exchanges of ideas, but building lasting relationships that will continue to generate change-making work going forward as well.

Applications are currently being accepted through December 6; participants will be selected and informed by late December. The application can be found at BwayAdvocacyCoalition.org.

Reimagining Justice Through Abolition is the second course offered via BAC and Columbia's partnership, following 2019's Building the Capacity for Impact Through Artistry, Law, and Activism.