OAKLAND — Dameion Brown was nearly 22 years into a life sentence when he saw a flier about a new Shakespeare theater program for inmates at California State Prison Solano. He signed up and was picked to play Macduff in a May 2015 prison production of “Macbeth.”
His fellow actors included former gang members and white supremacists. Costumes, which were not allowed to conceal prison blues, were sparse. Pool sticks substituted for swords.
On Friday, Brown, 48, will make his professional acting debut in “Othello” with the Marin Shakespeare Company. It would be an impressive feat for an amateur — whose only drama training was on a prison stage — to score even a bit part with a prestigious professional theater company.
But the Oakland resident, who was paroled Aug. 5, 2015, isn’t just in the play. He’s starring in the coveted lead role of the Moorish general who strangles his wife Desdemona in a jealous rage, then kills himself. “We have never had a formerly incarcerated actor starring or even acting in one of our plays,” said Marin Shakespeare Managing Director Lesley Currier. “As far as I know, nothing like this has ever happened in the United States.”
It is an extraordinary accomplishment for a man who served 23 years in prison after he was convicted in 1993 of physically abusing three of his young children when the family was living in San Jose. According to court documents, his 3-year-old daughter suffered brain damage. Brown has admitted that he was an abusive parent but has steadfastly maintained that his daughter’s severe injuries were the result of an accident.
Currier met Brown in 2014 when the Marin Shakespeare Company was starting its new drama program at Solano. The company has been going into prisons since 2003, starting with San Quentin, teaching drama therapy and acting to incarcerated men.
Brown contacted his old acting coach when he got out of prison. She invited him to a Marin Shakespeare performance of “Richard III.” It was the first time Brown had seen a live play.
“The whole time I was watching this awe-inspiring performance, I had to question, wow, could I do that?” he said, “because it was higher than I thought I could jump.”
Soon after that, however, he told Currier and her husband, Robert, the company’s artistic director, he wanted to play Othello. Brown said he felt drawn to the role in part because of the parallels to his own life.
“I could relate to a decision that leads to harm of one’s family and loss of love,” Brown said.
He had also been denied an opportunity to play the part many years earlier when he was in eighth grade. Brown said he was cast as Othello in his school production. But Jackson, the Tennessee town where he grew up, wasn’t ready for an interracial romance. The show was canceled.
While he was in prison, Brown said, he began studying “Othello” in the hopes that he might one day play the leading role.
The Curriers had hoped that a formerly incarcerated student would one day perform on the Marin Shakespeare stage. But Brown had only been out of prison a month and was just beginning to get his feet on the ground.
He was living in transitional housing in San Francisco’s Tenderloin district, and he was required by the conditions of his parole to check in and out of the building. He didn’t have a car. And he had just started a job working with troubled youths.
Casting an untested actor fresh out of prison for such a demanding role would be a big gamble. Currier said she and her husband had many soul-searching discussions with Brown about whether he could follow through on such a major commitment.
Then there was the issue of the publicity and its impact on Brown’s family.
He has been married to his current wife, Danielle, since 2005. They met when she was a guard at Soledad State Prison and Brown was an inmate there. Brown said he consulted with his wife, and adult children who live in San Jose, and they encouraged him to go for it.
The past year has been a whirlwind for Brown. He has been getting intensive vocal and acting coaching. Meanwhile, Brown said, his more experienced fellow actors have also been teaching him the tricks of the trade.
Luisa Frasconi, who plays Othello’s ill-fated wife Desdemona, said he has blossomed as an actor in the last several months.
“He brings this raw, natural instinct to everything,” she said. “Dameion makes a choice, and he comes in bold and big.”
Frasconi said Brown has been open with the cast about his criminal conviction and invited his fellow actors to ask questions.
“I’ve read the whole case online, and what he told us aligned with that,” she said. “I just sort of feel that what he did was a huge mistake and that he now has a second chance.”
Brown has taken a month off from his job as a youth case manager at the nonprofit Community Works West to prepare for his upcoming performances startingFriday.
Ruth Morgan, the nonprofit’s executive director and founder, met Brown when he was an inmate at Solano. He was a co-facilitator for a parenting education class that Community Works West was running for men in prison, and had completed the program himself.
She said Brown works with young men 18 to 25 who have been released from jail or referred by the San Francisco District Attorney’s Office through a diversion program where youths complete a supervised program instead of going to prison.
“He helps them get jobs, housing and get them into school; on a path to change their lives,” Morgan said. “He’s just a natural leader to do this work with young men.”
Brown said he wants to impart the lessons he has learned to young people caught up in the criminal justice system.
“No matter how hard or deep you fall,” he said, “there is a way up with your efforts, with your good sense and judgment.”
Contact Tammerlin Drummond at 510-208-6468. Follow her at Twitter.com/Tammerlin.
