The Colman Domingo-starring Sing Sing is the latest installment in Deadline’s Read the Screenplay series that highlights the script behind this year’s most-talked about movies in awards season.
The Greg Kwedar-directed film from A24 is based on the true story of John “Divine G” Whitfield (Domingo), who’s imprisoned for a crime he didn’t commit but finds purpose by acting in a theater group alongside other incarcerated men like Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin (who plays himself). The movie also stars Sean San José, Sean “Dino” Johnson, Jon Adrian “JJ” Velazquez and Paul Raci.
The prisoners were part of program called RTA, or Rehabilitation Through the Arts. Launched at New York’s Sing Sing Correctional Facility in 1996, RTA has grown from a single theater workshop to a comprehensive arts program in multiple prisons in the state and is a world leader in arts-in-prison programming, the organization said. Less than 3% of RTA members return to prison vs the national recidivism rate of 60%.
The group’s interim director, Leslie Lichter, called Sing Sing “a powerful film that captures the incarcerated community and life in prison uniquely and authentically.” The story is by Kwedar, Clint Bentley, Maclin and Whitfield, and was adapted for the screen by Bentley & Kwedar.
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Added Maclin, “I guess the most incredible thing is to be received so well. We, the men and women who lived it, find our peace knowing the world can hear us. To go back in and have the opportunity to show my brothers that life after prison is possible. To be able to demonstrate that society can receive us as we are, broken and healed. To show them they do have redeeming qualities, that have a place in society is what drives me to continue spreading the word. We exist. We are coming home. And we can help.”
Sing Sing premiered at the 2023 Toronto Film Festival where Deadline’s review called it “a love letter to the transformative power of performing arts.” It won the Audience Award at SXSW and hit theaters in July. The film has seen success at the early awards circuit: the National Board of Review named it the year’s best screenplay and it is a Best Picture nominee at the Spirit Awards, where Domingo and Maclin are also nominated after the pair both won at the Gotham Awards.
Domingo also just scored a Golden Globes nomination.
Read the script below.
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