Truthworker Theatre Company is a social justice based, hip-hop theatre company founded and directed by Samara Gaev, for high school and college-aged youth in Brooklyn, NY. Providing youth leadership programming, professional stipends, and rigorous artistic training; Truthworker raises awareness and catalyzes action for racial, gender, and economic justice.

Young visionaries directly impacted by mass incarceration write and perform original productions that interrogate the prison industrial complex, challenge systems of oppression, invite healing dialogue, and foster artistic interventions, inspiring solutions for collective liberation.

Truthworker is a safe space for young people to be the subjects, not the objects, of their own stories as they unpack, problematize, and shift the dominant, often stereotypical narratives in mainstream media. In a country with the largest prison population in the world, Truthworker’s bold storytelling is geared towards enlivening creative solutionaries.

Written and performed by 16-24 year old artists, Truthworker’s deeply personal performances center redemption, forgiveness, and responsibility to humanize those most negatively impacted by systemically racist policies. Creating radical forums for vulnerability, Truthworker’s compelling performances weave rhyme, hip-hop theatre, dance, multimedia, cutting edge technology, and personal testimony to interrupt and transform the criminalizing and violent systems that permeate our communities. Using art to raise awareness, Truthworker’s productions serve as the public face of a growing movement demanding criminal justice reform.