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The essay demonstrates the value of improvisatory theater work as a tool for empowering individuals and communities who have been subjected to powerful cultural and institutional discipline. Specifically, it describes, evokes, and analyzes a theater workshop led by advanced college theater students at the United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners for inmates with borderline personality disorder. It explores the ways in which theatrical improvisation, in theory and in practice, supported and strengthened the inmates' treatment program, helping them to act against fear, isolation, and despair. It also tracks the effect of the collaboration on individuals in the college and prison communities, and the impact of the project on the relationship between these radically different social groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]