James Phillip is a participant of the Playwrights Project, a 2024 recipient of the Prebys Foundation’s Healing Through the Arts & Nature grant.
This grant supports nonprofit organizations that serve youth, veterans, justice-impacted individuals, and historically underserved communities. Through innovative approaches, these organizations provide meaningful opportunities to enhance well-being and quality of life in a post-pandemic world.
James’ Story
“I first connected with the Playwrights Project while I was in prison.
It started as a way to get out of the cell because there are a lot of lockdowns. At the time I was really trying to work with my own mental health, but when you’re inside, there aren’t a lot of opportunities to focus on self or to try to improve.
After I got involved, I really loved writing, and it just opened up a creative avenue to express anything you may be too embarrassed, shy or shameful about to express in a group setting. But when you get to writing, you can have a character express what you’re feeling. So, you get to express yourself.
I’ve written many plays, and you can write a play about a child who was neglected when they were young and how that affected them growing up. And you’re really talking about yourself. That connection kept me involved and it kept me coming back. Even though I’d switch yards as my points went down, the Playwrights Project was offered at other yards.
So, I kept signing up and getting other people involved and saying, look man, you’re going to like this group. You can go work out on the bars or run laps and do all that and stay stuck in your cell reading books. But if you want to really experience something different, come to the group.
Sometimes we had 20 to 30 people participating. It was a popular program.
I participated in the Playwrights Project in prison for about three years. And that’s when my points got low enough and they brought me back to San Diego. When I made it to level one, I went back to school. They started offering community college inside prison, I went and signed up for that too. I think I started off with a psychology major and I ended up with about 20 credits.
When I got out, I went to City College first and then I transferred to SDSU. I’m in the master’s program right now. I am doing restorative justice and educational counseling. I haven’t stopped going to school and I only have about eight months left before I have my master’s degree.
When I first came home, I was released to the Male Community Reentry Program (MCRP). So, I was wearing an ankle monitor for a year and going to school. In the circles I participated in we had a saying that my people die for a lack of knowledge. So, when I was in MCRP, I tried to encourage everyone to go to school, and I would share that I was taking classes at City College.
I got 16 people enrolled in City College, so they said “look we might as well give you a job.” While I still had the ankle monitor on, I became employed by the San Diego Unified School District as the outreach coordinator for formerly incarcerated students.
It felt like a seamless transition out of prison and MCRP into community college and SDSU. I was going to SDSU and Playwrights Project was also at SDSU. I stayed connected with a lot of people — it’s easy to find positive outlets when you are really changing your life.
I’ve been out of prison since January 2020.
I am a drug and alcohol counselor right now at Tradition One, a residential rehabilitation home. And I thought writing could be another form of rehabilitation. These guys who’ve had a lot of past traumas could really learn to express themselves. And Cecelia from Playwrights Project is going to bring the playwriting program to my counseling program.
My hope is that they’ll be able to talk about their experience. But it doesn’t have to be them, you know, and it can be in a setting where the machismo doesn’t allow them to share that the reason they started doing drugs or that maybe they began self-medicating because a death in the family and that just snowballed into addiction.
They often can’t really express their pain honestly in a group setting with a bunch of other men. So, I know it’s going to work. But this is going to be even more impactful.
My goal is to get them to see that their pain doesn’t go unrecognized. I come from a place where I understand that it’s not what you did, it’s what happened to you that led you to this circumstance. Most drug addiction is reactive — even if it was experimental at first — there’s some kind of past trauma that you’re trying to overcome. You’re trying to numb or dull the pain. And so, writing gives you a way to express without expressing. It is a healing process.
You can write about a painful experience, and you see others react to that pain and empathize with the characters. It lets you know that you’re not alone.
Writing in a group setting and seeing your play on stage builds camaraderie, and if you’re going through something, you’re not going through it by yourself. It’s like carrying a weight and then suddenly you’re not lifting it by yourself, the burden becomes lighter, you feel seen and understood and you realize that other people are going to similar things.”
This profile is a feature for People de San Diego, a storytelling project by the Prebys Foundation highlighting valuable community members of San Diego County.
