Open Sky Founder honored with 2023 Bayberry Financial Services Artrepreneur Award
Open Sky Founder Derek Lucci, right, with Tom Raffio, CEO of Northeast Delta Dental and chair of the NH Business Committee for the Arts board, at NHBCA's 39th Annual Arts Award Gala. Open Sky, Inc. is a 501(c)3 registered in the state of New Hampshire. 
Open Sky has attracted interest, guidance and support from the NH Dept of Corrections, Dartmouth Health, Geisel School of Medicine, The NH Charitable Foundation, NH Humanities and NH State Council on the Arts. Open Sky is pursuing independent evaluation of programming and outcomes through the JSI Research & Training Institute, Inc. in preparation for review by the NH Center for Excellence Service to Science Expert Panel to be designated as an evidence-based program.
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Open Sky’s innovative approach uses the skills-based principles of advanced actor training to create space and opportunity for incarcerated persons to develop the individual and collaborative skills that will empower them to successfully reintegrate into society with their humanity flourishing; connected, and able to remain positively connected to the world around them.
Open Sky offers incarcerated individuals the opportunity to exercise and cultivate individual faculties and facilities of communication, sensitivity, responsibility and effective, disciplined collaboration that will enable participants to actively choose a more pro-social narrative for themselves and develop the skills they need to re-enter society including:
Conceived and created by actor Derek Lucci, Open Sky was launched in 2019 at the New Hampshire State Prison for Men in Concord, NH working with a core group of actors and a design, tech and build team. While the COVID pandemic necessitated a hiatus of the program, Open Sky returned to class late in 2021 and, in 2022, offered their first public presentation, Sam Shephard's True West, which was seen by 650 incarcerated individuals and an invited audience of supporters and stakeholders.
Despite having launched our pilot programming just before the outbreak of the COVID pandemic, prison staff and participants in the program report experiencing clear, direct gains in important outcome areas including daily well-being and visibly improved demeanor. |
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