Maine Inside Out

06/24/2026

🎭 Host a Theater Workshop or Social Change Conversation 🎭

Maine Inside Out is currently booking theater workshops and community social change conversations for fall 2026 and into 2027. We would love to talk with groups interested in engaging with MIO’s theater tools!

✨ Ambiente Theater Workshops ✨
For corporate leaders and mission-driven organizations ready to go deeper than surface-level team building, this 90-minute interactive workshop introduces tools to transform how your team connects, collaborates, and leads.

🗣️ Community Social Change Conversations 🗣️
To engage communities in conversations around difficult topics, this 75-minute program features a screening of MIO's Broken Clock Documentary, facilitated dialogue, and theater activities to strengthen community trust and engagement.

📩 Contact [email protected] to explore options for your group or community!

For more information, visit our website at http://www.maineinsideout.org

06/23/2026

🚨 Final Call for Board Applicants — TODAY is the Final Day! 🚨

We are thrilled by the overwhelming interest in joining the Maine Inside Out Board of Directors. It is a true testament to our strong community and the deep dedication people have to this organization. ❤️

The MIO Board will be reviewing candidates over the next few weeks. The final day to apply is TODAY, June 23.

There are always plenty of other ways to support MIO by giving or by participating in events! 🎭💙

Thank you to everyone who continues to show up for MIO and our mission. ✨

🔗 https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfkd17aY7kmBYpLHyDsRWjRdOAd9x8QTmMX4Bnz4oRRgWsLcQ/viewform?blm_aid=149669

06/23/2026

✨ Celebrating Juneteenth with Performance + Dialogue ✨

Maine Inside Out celebrated Juneteenth with gratitude to be in community for creative expression, and for reckoning with the hard truth that none of us are free until all of us are free. ❤️🖤💚

Thank you to all who were part of our Juneteenth performances and community dialogues in Lewiston and Portland this year. As the justice system continues to have a disproportionate impact on people of color, we have deep appreciation for all who are working toward collective liberation. ✊🏾

The community dialogues were powerful following performances by Mojosudan, remarks by Samuel James, a film screening of the MIO “Broken Clock” tour documentary, and the MIO Creative Ensemble’s live performance of “The Big Yes.” 🎭🎶🎬

Featured artist Samuel James generously shared his remarks: Why Juneteenth is the most important day of the year

Thank you to Mayo Street Arts and The Public Theatre for hosting us, to Little Chair Printing for printing free Juneteenth shirts at the Lewiston event, to The Heritage Restaurant for making the Lewiston community meal, to Androscoggin Bank and to the MIO-Maine Prisoner Advocacy Coalition - MPAC Re-entry Community Group for volunteering, and to our Lewiston community partners for your participation: ArtVan; Gather to Grow; Mike Kleinfeld Photography; New Beginnings; Safe Voices; Somali Bantu Community Association; United Youth Empowerment Services; Youth-LED Justice. ❤️

Thank you to our event supporters: Androscoggin Bank; Berman & Simmons; KeyBank; Lewiston Public Art Committee; Permanent Commission on Status of Racial, Indigenous & Tribal Populations; Poland Spring Natural Spring Water; Sam L. Cohen Foundation; The Youth Justice Clinic and Maine Center for Youth Policy & Law University of Maine School of Law 💙

And thank you to everyone who joined us!

Youth in Lewiston were asking:

✨ When did you realize you needed to change for the better?
✨ Who or what gave you the motivation to change?
✨ What is the most important thing about Juneteenth?

Audience members in Portland were asking:

✨ How do you conjure up hope?

Themes that resonated with audiences:

❤️ Love
💭 Poverty
💔 Pain in your heart
🌱 Forget about the past, move forward
👨‍👩‍👧 Being better for your kids
🌟 Saying yes to who you are
🗣️ Talking behind someone’s back
🕊️ Arguments, crimes, shootings
👥 Being compared to siblings
🤗 Wanting to hug a family member
💪 Not giving up

And audience members were saying yes to:

❤️ Community
❤️ Love
👥 People
🌿 Patience
✨ Myself
🌈 Choices
🎭 Supporting MIO
🖤💚❤️ Juneteenth
✊ End all slavery
🕊️ End ICE detention centers
🌎 Celebrating variety

We closed each Juneteenth event with a community sing of an original song written by MOJOSUDAN for Maine Inside Out: Trust, Love & Purpose. 🎶

Thank you to all who shared your voices and your hearts. ❤️

06/23/2026

📢Dedication of the Welcome Immigrants Mural

June 26 | 3:30pm | Corner of Ash & Lisbon St.

Music▪️Food▪️Remarks▪️Meet the Artists Rachel Gloria Adams & Ryan Adams

LA Arts wants to invite our community to come to the dedication of the Welcome Immigrants mural this coming Friday, June 26 at 3:30 pm. Lisbon Street will be closed to traffic (and parked cars) from Pine to Main St. that afternoon and into the evening, for the dedication event and then the Art Walk Block Party from 5 to 8.

There will be music and food for the dedication, and remarks about the message of the mural as a tribute to immigrants throughout our community's history and in the present and future. Mayor Sheline and Fowsia Musse will be among the speakers, as will the artists, Ryan and Rachel Adams of Portland, who will speak about the message, including the gorgeous fabric designs, a tribute to Lewiston's history as a textile center.

Please join us and bring your colleagues and friends!

rachel gloria adams
Ryan Adams
(with assistants)
Spenser Macleod
chel

06/23/2026

🌳 Community Conversations in the Park Are Back! 🌳
Starting July 1st, Youth-LED Justice’s weekly Community Conversations in the Park will return.
Stop by to say hello, connect with neighbors, share ideas, and cool off with a freeze pop. A quick drop in, your voice matters, and you belong in the conversation.
Open to all 🌼

06/22/2026

💙 Help Close Out MIO’s $100k Campaign Today! 💙

Today is the final day of our effort to raise $100k in 22 days. Thank you to all who have helped us raise nearly $70,000 already! Let’s close this out with love today! 💙

Donate: www.givebutter.com/miospringappeal

06/19/2026

✨ Thank you to all who came out to celebrate Juneteenth with us at Mayo Street Arts in Portland! ✨

It was a packed house ready to reckon with the hard truth that none of us are free until all of us are free. ❤️🖤💚

The community dialogue was powerful following performances by Mojosudan, remarks by Samuel James, a film screening of the MIO “Broken Clock” tour documentary, and the MIO Creative Ensemble’s live performance of “The Big Yes.” 🎭🎶🎬

Featured artist Samuel James generously shared his remarks:

Why Juneteenth is the most important day of the year: https://samuelj.substack.com/p/why-juneteenth-is-the-most-important

06/16/2026

✨ One week til June 22, and just over $40,000 to go! ✨

The ground we stand on is built by people like you. 💙

MIO works across Maine - with youth and adults, inside prisons and in the community - doing the kind of culture-shift work that no policy alone can accomplish. In Lewiston, teens are telling their own stories through theater alongside community partners. Adults returning from incarceration find community through weekly drop-ins. System-impacted artists are making original theater from lived experience.

In the past two months alone, 12 Lewiston youth were arrested for violence and gun-related offenses and sent to Long Creek, Maine’s youth prison. Juvenile justice referrals here are among the highest in the state. Youth are being released without the support they need, cycling through systems built to respond to crisis, not prevent it.

MIO has faced severe cuts in government and foundation funding this past year. We’ve made a deliberate choice: to root our survival in the people who believe in this work - not the institutions pulling back. Your support carries more weight than it ever has.

🌱 If we reach $100k by June 22:
✨ Youth theater in Lewiston continues into its fifth year.
🎭 Theater projects begin inside Bolduc Correctional Facility and the Southern Maine Women’s Re-entry Center this fall.
💙 Drop-ins, community gatherings, and playmaking keep going.

We support one another to have the courage this moment demands. None of it happens without you.

📣 Share this.
💙 Give what you can.
⏳ There is still time - and it takes all of us!
🔗 www.givebutter.com/miospringappeal

06/16/2026

✨ Tomorrow: Portland Juneteenth Performances + Community Dialogue ✨

We can’t wait to come together again for music, story, original theater, the Portland premiere of our new short documentary film, and open community dialogue about what liberation really looks like in our communities. This is a chance for reflection and action alongside one another. 💙

📅 Wednesday, June 17
📍 Mayo Street Arts
🚪 Doors at 6:30pm

Featuring:
🎶 MOJOSUDAN
🎸 Samuel James
🎬 The Broken Clock Documentary Film Premiere
🎭 The MIO Creative Ensemble

🎟️ Tickets at the door are first come, first served!

♿ Please contact Mandy Huotari at [email protected] with any event accessibility questions or requests.

📰 Juneteenth in the news:
Thank you to the Portland Press Herald for sharing about these events!
https://www.pressherald.com/2026/06/15/maine-theater-groups-new-production-breaks-down-barriers-in-portland-this-week/

💙 A powerful moment at the Lewiston Juneteenth event:

“Freedom and love were powerful on June 19, 1865. These truths can win out now.” — Samuel James

06/15/2026