Prisoners rarely get to see the same performances as their friends or family on the outside. But the Fig Tree Committee — a Portland, Ore., theater company touring in Vermont this month — is looking to change that. By staging the same play in and outside correctional facilities, the troupe aims to create a shared experience across prison walls. The company began performing An Iliad — a modern theatrical adaptation of Homer's epic Greek poem The Iliad — in prisons and public venues across Oregon in 2018. Actor Paul Susi portrays the Poet, narrating the story of the Trojan War, while Anna Fritz plays an original score on cello as the Muses, the goddesses of literature, science and the arts. Now making its out-of-state debut, the Fig Tree Committee has booked fall dates across Vermont, Wisconsin and Maine. On Monday, Susi and Fritz performed An Iliad to an audience of 24 at Southern State Correctional Facility, a men's prison in Springfield. The duo will appear at Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility, a women's prison in South Burlington, on Thursday, October 10. A public show will follow at the O.N.E. Community Center in Burlington on Friday, October 11. The idea to perform in both public venues and prisons emerged from conversations with prisoners, Fritz said. "We would have [incarcerated] folks come up to us saying, 'Are you guys gonna be in Portland? Are you gonna be in different towns? Because my brother would love this' or 'My mom would love this,'" Fritz said. "The conversations that happened between people on opposite sides of the walls who had this same experience together — there's not really anything like that." Local organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union of Vermont, Vermont Humanities and Burlington Friends Meeting, helped the theater company navigate the bureaucratic hurdles to gain access to the prisons. The unique setting requires a bare-bones production: Susi is the lone actor onstage, while Fritz sits in a chair and plays cello. There are no costume changes, special effects or high-tech stage lights. The performers initially chose An Iliad for pragmatic reasons. "It was a path of least resistance: It's Homer. It's ancient Greek culture," Susi said. "So it's a little bit easier for authority figures to give that a pass. We're trying to give people as few reasons as possible to say no to us." Susi said he was also drawn to…