Sarah McKenzie is a visual artist based in Boulder. She has exhibited her paintings nationally, including shows with the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, the Yale School of Architecture, the New Mexico Museum of Art in Santa Fe, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver. Since 2020 she has been working on an extended project researching and painting the architecture of prisons. In 2021, she was awarded the Marion International Fellowship for the Visual and Performing Arts to support her research into carceral space. That same year, she also began teaching art classes inside the Colorado Department of Corrections through the University of Denver Prison Arts Initiative. In 2024, along with Lillian Stannard, Sarah co-founded Impact Arts to continue her teaching in the CDOC and to create and support exhibition opportunities for formerly and currently incarcerated artists.

Lilly Stannard is an interdisciplinary artist, educator and artist-researcher interested in the transformative nature of the arts in various settings. Lilly has worked as an arts administrator and teaching artist within a range of schools and companies, some of which include Spellbound Theatre, Ramapo for Children, and the Verbatim Performance Lab where she developed engaging arts-based curricula for diverse populations. She served as the Director of Programming for the DU Prison Arts Initiative beginning in 2021 where she began her work within the Colorado Department of Corrections. In 2024, along with Sarah McKenzie, Lilly co-founded Impact Arts with the mission of generating arts classes, programs, and exhibitions in and around the criminal-legal system in Colorado. Her writing about artistic transformative justice practices and verbatim theatre work can be found in various publications including The McGill Journal of Education, Routledge Undergraduate Research Series and the Inquiries Journal.

Michael Clifton is a passionate advocate for the transformative power of the arts, drawing from his personal journey and lived experiences. After serving 24 years in the Colorado Department of Corrections under an unjust 98-year prison sentence, Michael was granted clemency by Governor Jared Polis in 2023. During his time in incarceration, Michael discovered the healing and empowering potential of the arts through the University of Denver Prison Arts Initiative (DU PAI), led by Dr. Ashley Hamilton. Michael played a key role in the creation of If Light Closed Its Eyes, a groundbreaking verbatim theater play that explores the complexities of the criminal justice system and shared humanity. As an actor, part of the interview team, and assistant dance director, Michael contributed to the production, which has since been adapted into a film. He continues to share the story of If Light Closed Its Eyes with college students and community groups, using it as a platform to advocate for the arts as a vehicle for healing, rehabilitation, and societal change.

Michael’s commitment to creating opportunities for personal and collective transformation aligns with Impact Arts’ mission. His unique perspective as both a survivor of the justice system and a creator in the arts brings invaluable insight to the organization’s work, inspiring others to see the potential for redemption, inclusion, and empowerment through artistic expression.

Longtime journalist Lisa Kennedy writes on popular culture and other topics. From 2003 to 2015, she was film critic for the Denver Post. Before that, she held high-level editor posts at Out, Us and the Village Voice. In 2012, she added the theater beat to her duties at the Post. A member of the National Society of Film Critics, she has been a juror for a number of film awards. She was juror for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism. In 2015 she was named Print Journalist of the Year by the Colorado chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists. In 2019, she served on the Denver Mayor’s Excellence in Arts & Culture selection panel. She is currently in her second term as a commissioner on the Denver Commission on Cultural Affairs and serves as board chair of the Colorado film incubator Cine Fe. She has been published in the Variety, New York Times, The Denver Post, The Boston Globe, Essence magazine, American Theatre, Kirkus Reviews and Alta magazine among other outlets. She is at work on “Icarus Ascending,” an experimental memoir set during the AIDS crisis. 

Tess Neel is a theatre-maker and artist who believes that theatre and art help change perspectives, trajectories, and lives for participants and audiences alike. Through her background in stage management, production management, producing, and business management, Tess has worked with many theatre companies including the Arvada Center Black Box Theatre, The Athena Project, The PACE Center, The Three Leaches, Reunion Entertainment LLC, Lamont Opera Company, Denver Center for the Performing Arts, Bailey Theatre Company, and the University of Denver Prison Arts Initiative (DU PAI).

Among Tess’s most notable work with DU PAI are the Unchained Voices Fine Art Show (Manager), Godspell at Colorado Territorial & Fremont Correctional Facilities (Producer & Production Manager), IF LIGHT CLOSED ITS EYES, the play & film (Producer & Production Manager), and These Walls Film (Producer). Tess is also one of the founding team members and Producing Director of Denver Theatre Ensemble, a new theatre company focused on creating meaningful new, classic, and devised theatre in a professional environment. 

Tamarra Nelson (she/her) is a Denver based educator, administrator, and theatre artist. Born in Colorado, Tamarra has lived in Denver since 2014, making theatre, facilitating, and working with hundreds of young people along the way. She has been a teaching artist and arts administrator with organizations such as the Denver Center for Performing Arts, Colorado Shakespeare Festival, and Mirror Image Arts. She’s also served as a full time educator, teaching 2nd and 3rd graders. Most recently, she worked as the Director of Youth Programs for Creative Strategies for Change, an arts and social justice non-profit. She also works around the city as a theatre director and performer, most recently with Two Cent Lion Theatre Company on their production of Rocky Horror Picture Show. Tamarra aims use art to foster the kindness, thoughtfulness, and sense of justice that already exists within young folks and encourage them to take these qualities on into adulthood, empowering them to not only advocate for themselves, but the people and communities around them.

JoyBelle Phelan is a writer, co-founder, and executive director of Unbound Authors and serves as writer relations manager at Prison Journalism Project. 

Phelan was incarcerated twice for a total of seven years and passionately believes that no one should be remembered for the worst decision they have ever made. She is using her lived experience to challenge the perceptions of what prison is like for women and what reentry can look like. While inside, she was in various leadership and peer mentor positions, worked as the pre-release clerk, and helped to develop and implement the re-entry unit program. She was the first woman at her facility to be published in Colorado’s The Inside Report prison newspaper, later serving as Managing Editor while employed with DU Prison Arts Initiative. She currently volunteers in the Colorado Dept of Corrections, providing writer mentoring labs to incarcerated writers, and is a graduate of the 2023 Dream Justice cohort. She is a citizen member of the Arapahoe County Community Corrections Board and the 2024 recipient of the Realness Project Exemplar award. 

She has been a guest on multiple national podcasts focused on re-entry. Her TEDx San Quentin talk can be found on YouTube; her writing can be found on the Prison Journalism Project website.

Julie Rada is a theatre and performance maker, educator, and scholar, having done theatre for 35 years including work on over 80 performance projects with particular focus on immersive and site-specific original cross-disciplinary work. Julie has created performances with refugees, people with disabilities, youth experiencing homelessness, professional actors, and people dying in hospice. Julie has worked in the prison system for nearly a dozen years, founding programs in four states facilitating new works of theatre with incarcerated artists. She was selected as an artist-in-residence by the National Endowment for the Arts at the Phoenix Federal Corrections Institution and was instrumental in forging the University of Denver Prison Arts Initiative as Lead Affiliate Faculty and Director of Programming. Julie currently runs ACT Ensemble in the Colorado system.

Julie’s scholarship includes two chapters in Into Abolitionist Theatre: A Guidebook for Liberatory Theatre-making (2024) and a chapter in Prison Pedagogies: Learning and Teaching with Imprisoned Writers (2018), and peer-reviewed articles and book reviews in ArtsPraxis, Theatre Topics, and Platform. In recent years, Julie led advocacy efforts with Mirror Image Arts, advancing statewide youth justice initiatives in the legislature, passing bills, and building community awareness campaigns.

 Currently, Julie is Chair of Visual & Performing Arts at Community College of Aurora and they have served on faculty at the University of Utah, Metro State University, and Naropa University. She holds an MFA from Arizona State University and a certificate in Restorative Justice Leadership and Facilitation from the University of San Diego. Julie is co-founder of a Denver-based queer multimedia performance collective exploring community-embedded art and performance called Grapefruit Lab.

Dustin Ware is a formerly incarcerated artist pursuing creative avenues to bring a sense of freedom and culture to an otherwise oppressive and abysmal system. Dustin has been an artist for over thirty years, doing everything from graffiti murals to portraits and tattoos. Dustin’s goal is to make art and education accessible to all of those in prison and those that have been liberated from incarceration.