Sing Sing
Summary
Colman Domingo asterisk inSing Sing , based on the veridical - life accomplishments of the " Rehabilitation Through the Arts " program at New York ’s Sing Sing prison . How successful is the RTA program ? Successful enough that many of the primary plaster bandage are portrayed by formerly gaol actors , alumna of the broadcast who are portraying rendering of themselves .
The moving picture followsThe Color Purplestaras John " Divine gee " Whitfield , who comes into conflict with Clarence " Divine Eye " Maclin ( playing himself ) , a hardened soul who nevertheless takes a chance and house up to participate in the RTA program . Divine Eye must learn to shed his toxic maleness and take out his emotional armor , while Divine G has to wrestle with his ego and this maverick raw player , all while both men struggle under the state - sanctioned dehumanization of America ’s infamous prison system .
prison house make for a unique range of issue and tensions that some appearance , include Prison Break and Orange Is the New Black use to great event
While promoting thetheatrical going ofSing Sing , co - writer and music director Greg Kwedar sit down down for an audience withScreen bombast . He mouth about his introduction to the RTA program and how it inspired him to create the pic , and how its themes of friendship and perseverance are world-wide to the human experience . He also talk about the film ’s unique casting and how having rattling formerly incarcerated actors helped elevate the filmbeyond any " prison movie"that ’s ever been made .
Director Greg Kwedar On The Transformative Power Of Rehabilitation Through The Arts
Screen claptrap : The movie is incredible . I ’m so glad I got to see it it ’s one of a kind .
Greg Kwedar : give thanks you .
First of all , did you have any amour in Rehab Through the Arts ? And what made you go , this has get to be a movie .
Custom image by Simone Ashmoore
Greg Kwedar : It ’s kind of wild . You be intimate , I discover the story over eight years ago . I was producing a short documentary inside of a maximum security prison in Kansas , and it was my first time ever behind the walls . And we were doing a doc about something else . But on a term of enlistment of the readiness , I pass by a mobile phone and there was a new human raising a rescue dog inside of a cell . And immediately , my expectations about prison and hoi polloi in prison house was upended because I saw the healing that was happening in both directions between this untried man and this animal . And I was just heroic to recognise more about who was doing thing otherwise in prison house .
That began an eight twelvemonth journeying that at last led me to become a volunteer in the program with my originative partner , Clint . We taught an act class . I ’ve seen firsthand the power of this work and what happens in these rooms and how beautiful the energy is of all these mass who are desperate for connection and to put down the masks and to really do this work and to allow their originative spirits to soar . We walk aside from that experience finger like , if we could just fascinate the energy of what it feel like , we ’d have a motion picture . It just was really hard to estimate out how to do that .
At the end of the day , the way of life we in the end figured out how to do it was by inviting the alumni into this creative summons , first with Divine Eye and Divine G , and then Colman and then the rest of the alumni that are in our motion-picture show . And by doing the work in a community fashion , like it actually happens , like , adjust that into the filmmaking process , it unlocked the energy . You could n’t do it traditionally and capture that spirit .
Based on actual events, Sing Sing is a drama movie that tells the story of the Sing Sing Correctional Facility and a group of prisoners within that decide to stage their own musical production within the prison’s walls.
It feels authentic in a style that so many prison house pic do n’t . They call them detention centers or rehabilitation centers , but the only rehabilitation that happens is when the mass who are incarcerated do it themselves with programs like this . It ’s so tragic and captivating .
Greg Kwedar : It ’s the power of these programs , theater being one example , a deliverance dog program , like I witnessed all those years ago being another . It ’s all about these room access that startle to open a opening . Once you begin , your spirit sort of comes live and shows you not just where you are , but who you’re able to be . A prison surroundings is contrive to create a culture where you ca n’t mayhap be yourself . You have to put up so many wall just to protect yourself . And this type of work is about sort of flake off those away . And what you might discover there is really maybe the most beautiful part about yourself , the matter that you were seek to protect for so long .
Sing Sing’s Authenticity Extends To Its Shooting Locations
And you shot in literal prisons , too , right ?
Greg Kwedar : We shot for a day at the real Sing Sing . So all the exterior are the real place . It ’s such an iconic scene . And there ’s the collocation between all of those walls and razor wire and then the Hudson River and the mountains beyond it . It ’s also one of the only prisons in the existence where a commuter train train goes through the railway yard , literally through the yard several times an hour .
But the majority of our actual interior prison work was at a place address Downstate , which had closed a calendar month before we went in there . We were the first sort of outdoor production to ever be in this place . And it was a facility that if you were going to serve well a long bid in New York State , you would begin at Downstate and then matriculate to other facilities across the state . So our entire alumni cast had been put behind bars there at one distributor point in their biography , which was something we were very sensitive about and aware od . And it was voiceless for our cast .
But what I ’ve heard sentence and again from our graduate is that , whatever discomfort we were feeling , the purpose was greater , you know , of getting to say our own narrative . And the transformation that pop to happen when , you bonk , the realization that these cat valium they ’re tire out are just a costume to convey a fictional character and not a mandate . And so there ’s something free in that passage that happens through the process of get the moving-picture show .
Sure . Yeah , it ’s very well said . I suppose I get up in Fishkill . I used to take the Metro North up and down when I was a Thomas Kid . But you always are aware that , just a duet of stops down is Ossining , kind of an retiring petty position , where Sing Sing is .
Greg Kwedar : Oh , wow . Okay . And Downstate is in reality in Fishkill , where we shot . It ’s a lilliputian more hidden away . it ’s kind of hard to miss Sing Sing , but Downstate is a rough place , tuck away in the hills there .
The movie is already winning awards , and everyone ’s raving about Domingo Colman , as they should be . Tell me a little mo about that journey of now in the end being able to share with everyone what you ’ve been doing . How do you feel about the press that the movie ’s been getting ?
Greg Kwedar : Yeah , I think of , it ’s very surreal when you commence to realize that this thing that you ’ve give so much of your life to with some really wondrous people is now , it ’s now bighearted than us , you know . And also in a certain path , it does n’t really go to us anymore . We ’re in this transitionary state where we ’re handing off the movie that was so special to us . The appendage of make it is where our memories are , of the making of it .
Now , we ’re in this liminal state where we ’re give the movie to the audience and we get to be a part of that exchange and doing these Q&As and these premiere and all that , It ’s a joyfulness to watch an audience start to feel the love and aid that we had in making it . That they ’re show it back to us is one of the beautiful thing about the theatrical experience and being in this dreary room together and having all of our feels .
I was think about the themes of the movie and how Clarence ’s graphic symbol had to make the option to audition , even if he immediately regrets it . At the same time , so many people in prison are only there because they got ill-omened , because they ’re the one that the cops tackled , or they happened to look enough like someone else . Is that something that you were witting of while making the movie , just that idea of opportunity and pick ?
Greg Kwedar : No , but I love the beautiful surprisal of how aesthetic work is interpreted and that ’s part of the interchange that we have , of you as a writer , having seen this film and it ’s channeling on a wavelength that sometimes we ’re not even conscious of as the artist making it .
I remember what you ’re raising is this idea of " leaning in , " and Clarence was someone who mystify respect for a long time through fearfulness and yet had all this capability for love that just no one ever asked of him until Divine G insert his orbit . And there was already something that the program itself was already create this magnetic pulling towards Clarence because it stood for something and it had value . And if you were ever in the interview for one of these shows , you felt the beaut of that cognitive process and that stunner is an invitation .
I think great things find when people like Divine GB stand for something , and then for others who hear that and overcome that neural anxiety wanting to step in , but feeling afraid of what it might unlock . I cerebrate we just need to take that first step and someone else will take a step towards you .
It ’s just that idea of let that paries down , or even just get rid of a single brick so you’re able to glance through is so hefty in the movie . I was talking to people afterward , require , " When did you cry ? " And the answer were all dissimilar , but they were all tears of delight .
Greg Kwedar : You have intercourse , the testimony of this motion-picture show to friendship , you recognise , in all of its forms , you know , with Mike - Mike ’s report being about the beauty of an old friend , of a survive friendly relationship and that shorthand you have . Sean San José toy Mike - Mike in the film and he ’s Coleman ’s veridical life oldest best supporter . I mean , they ’ve been friends for over 30 years and that comes across on screen , you know ? And then there ’s the knockout of the novel friends , the ones that kind of come into your life and just sort of sway everything up and , you know , kind of move you into motility , you know , in term of your own journeying and in the shifty way that they can support each other .
I do n’t know that I would have fully understood the time value of that if I did n’t have my real life best friend as a originative cooperator , Clint Bentley . I mean , we ’ve been doing this for so long that when one of us is down , the other one is up and continue their hand . It makes the peaks of moments like this worth it because you have someone to help through the tough sentence . And then , you know , the cameras turn off and people pop out stop asking motion and you ’re back to the grind again . And everyone forget who you are , except for that booster who still sees you and still believes in you . And that ’s how we ’ve been able to keep pop off all this time . I would n’t have been able-bodied to do it without him .
You and Clint are making the picture show with these guys who have lived this unique experience . Did anything foundational change because of the stimulation of these cat , your role player ?
Greg Kwedar : Without question . Really , at every level . Even in the hand stage , because I ca n’t really say that we wrote that , you know ? We did bring everything we have to that material and really bestow a mountain of meaning work to it . But we tell it in concert with the real Divine Eye and Divine G. I mean , they have a ' tale by ' credit , and that ’s not just like a ' give thanks you . ' That was really because of their dynamic participation and telling their own tarradiddle , as well as Colman , too .
He ’s not just an worker , but he ’s a playwright and a theater director and a film writer . And he brought so much amazing insight into the storytelling process , the dramatics as well as experience from his own aliveness . I mean , the script really became this vessel for us to put all of ourselves into it . And then we were able to assort of help curate that and rein in it as author . But it would n’t be what it is without the community campaign . There are several sequences in the photographic film that are just position , you know , where we created a moment where a question was posed of the gentleman of the room , and then we just turn the television camera on . And these gentleman’s gentleman spoke from the profundity of their souls . I mean , no one could have write that . You could only have lived it .
When you ’ve got these doer of varying experience and life experience and , you screw , behind the camera or in front of the tv camera experience , does it does it all just kind of go aside once the ball starts rolling ? What ’s that process like ?
Greg Kwedar : It ’s very alive . I mean , it ’s electric , aboveboard , because you are you ’re integrating , you know , a tremendous amount of craft with histrion like Colman and Paul Raci and Sean San José with a room full of men who are actually from this program , who are genuine alumni , and they have a wondrous amount of craft from the microscope stage . But many were act in their first feature movie . And so that kind of vulnerability and find was so attractive to be around . It kind of reminded all of us on set who have maybe been a little harden by by the manufacture of just how beautiful a gift it is to be able to make picture show . They brought so much . Every section had something to learn from these men .
About Sing Sing
A theater company line up escape from the realities of incarceration through the creativity of putting on a play in this picture show based on a real - life story rehabilitation computer programme and feature a cast that include formerly gaol actors .
Check out our otherSing Singinterviews here :
Sing Singdebuts in select theaters on July 12 and expands across the country on August 2 .
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Based on genuine events , Sing Sing is a play moving-picture show that tells the story of the Sing Sing Correctional Facility and a radical of captive within that decide to arrange their own musical production within the prison house ’s bulwark .
