Following the film screen, on- and off-Broadway producer, Cheryl Wiesenfeld, will be joined on stage with actors and the creator of RTA for a conversation.
Theater that Changes Our World has always showcased plays that teach us a lesson, open us up to other narratives, and connect us to ourselves and our greater world. Theater has the power to transform!
This year we show the transformative power of theater through a film, not a play. This film is based on a prison theater program called Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA).
It was started in 1996 after a small group of men in prison expressed an interest in putting on a play at the prison. Along with Katherine Vockins, the founder of RTA, the program was formed. That year, they wrote and staged their first play. The play marked the beginning of Rehabilitation Through the Arts, which is now active in eight prisons throughout New York, including men and women’s prisons with maximum and medium security.
Theater, as we’ve shown audiences over 10 years at The Quick, does have the power to change our world. Over the years of our program, we’ve focused on social justice and incarceration in such plays as CELL, GUN COUNTRY, SHARED SENTENCES and SURVIVING TROUBLED WATERS: FROM PRISON TO FREEDOM THROUGH MUSIC.
The program of Rehabilitation Through the Arts does just that: It teaches incarcerated people how to restore their lives through theater which, in stark contrast to the current system of criminal punishment, is based on respect and human dignity.
Brent Buell is a playwright, director and producer. For ten years he volunteered with RTA directing theater in New York’s maximum-security prisons with plays ranging from John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men” to original work by the prisoners.
One of Brent’s plays, a comedy, “Breakin’ the Mummy’s Code” premiered at Sing Sing, and became the inspiration for A24’s film “Sing Sing” directed by Greg Kweder and starring Oscar-nominated actor Colman Domingo and Clarence Macklin. Buell is portrayed in the film by Oscar-nominated Paul Raci. The film is out now and has been short listed on many “best of” lists.
The film beautifully captures the visceral sense of seeing these men reluctantly join the cast of the play, and yielding to it, becoming part of the journey and life of the play, and through it becoming transformed.
So, in my 10th year as part of “Theatre that Changes Our World” program, I feel this film grasps and portrays what we do perfectly.
Following the film, we will feature a discussion with Brent Buell, and Patrick Brooks Associate Professor Visual and Performing Arts at Fairfield University, and hopefully one of the gifted actors from the film.
Theater definitely Changes Our World!
—Cheryl Wiesenfeld, curator of the Global Theatre Series
