The Inspirational True Story Behind Colman Domingo's 'Sing Sing'
Perhaps it makes sense that one of the best ways to rehabilitate a convicted criminal is to teach him to act like somebody else. Here is a murderer, doing porridge till he dies, warming his cold blood over the slow flame of a Hamlet soliloquy. Is that drug dealer actually learning the errors of his ways by channelling his inner Stanley Kowalski?
Shakespeare had it right all along: all the world really is a stage. Even prison, where the best part of doing theatre is that you’re guaranteed a captive audience.
That’s the setting of the new film Sing Sing, which explores the transformative power of theatre in one of the world’s most infamous maximum-security jails. Based on an extraordinary true story, the film follows a group of cons taking part in the Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA) program in Sing Sing Prison in upstate New York, as they seek fresh purpose through the creation of a stage show called Breakin' the Mummy's Code.
One of the most remarkable things about the film is its blend of professional actors with actual programme alumni who have since been released back into society. In America, its heartwarming tale has been met with moist-eyed reviews and is already being tipped as an Oscar contender.
But what of the real-life cons who both inspired the film, and starred in it?
What's the story?
The story is actually based on an Esquire US article by the journalist John H. Richardson. In 2005, Richardson had heard tell of a revolutionary new prison rehabilitation programme that actually seemed to be working. Prisoners were going method on their malfeasance, using acting to understand themselves. So he secured a visit to Sing Sing Prison to see for himself.
What he saw jarred his moral compass. “Watching killers sing and dance is an odd thing,” he wrote. “First it hits you—gosh, they’re nervous and excited, giggly and shy, desperate for appreciation and recognition just like everyone else. Then you think of what they did to get here and you feel ashamed, as if your recognition of their humanity was actually a moment of weakness. Shouldn’t these guys be punished?”
But gradually he begins to see the people behind the police records. He hears their backstories – stories of childhood abuse and neglect and slippery slopes – and learns their real names. Some suffer stage fright, others express anger at forgetting a line. He sees vulnerability in their efforts to put on a good show, and watches them perform to a full house of some of America’s most dangerous criminals. In the end, he concludes: “Art heals, slapstick saves, killers can become comedians.”
It doesn’t spare much thought for the families of these men’s victims which, I think, is a trick missed. I wonder what they would think of it all. But then, the point of the story is not to show the two sides of crime, rather to prove it is possible to separate a man from his actions. Plus, with prison overcrowding growing into an increasingly political hot potato across the West, the conversation about rehabilitation has never felt more important. Anyway, for what it lacks in balance it makes up for in throbbing heart.
Who are the film’s real life characters?
Clarence "Divine Eye" Maclin
In the Esquire story, Divine Eye does Hamlet’s To be or not to be number with gusto. What he was actually sent down for is unclear. He does have his own page on the Rehabilitation through the Arts (RTA) website, on which he says, “My life was influenced by hip hop, but I was drawn to the negative parts of a beautiful culture.”
Time done, he became a youth counsellor, a creative arts teacher, and gang intervention specialist before joining the RTA as a consultant and motivational speaker.
He also stars in the movie as himself, a role for which he has been widely praised.
Jon-Adrian “JJ” Velazquez
His is one of the saddest and most uplifting stories of the bunch. He served nearly 24 years at Sing Sing for a wrongful conviction. It turned out, almost a quarter of a century too late, that he didn’t shoot dead the retired NYPD officer during a burglary on his gambling house in Harlem. He was on the phone, at the time, to his mother.
Despite what turned out to be tower-topplingly shaky evidence, Velasquez was convicted in 1998 and sent to Sing Sing. That’s where he found theatre. Maintaining his innocence, he wrote a letter to investigative TV show Dateline NBC asking them to help bottom out his conviction. They agreed and, after 10 years of digging, the show aired in 2012 and was nominated for three Emmys, sparking a legal review of Velasquez’ case.
After a string of rebuffs and rebuttals, he was finally granted clemency in 2021, including a face-to-face apology from President Joe Biden.
He now advocates for criminal legal reform. And he still acts. He plays himself in Sing Sing.
Sean “Dino” Johnson
Another former inmate who plays himself in the movie, Johnson got dragged into gang life from an early age, getting his first taste of prison life aged 15. He ultimately served 15 years at Sing Sing for drug convictions.
“Prison is a very morbid place, but believe it or not I found my freedom behind the wall with the arts,” he told the New York Times. For the film, he said, “my only ritual was a prayer to be able to show up with honesty and to be able to walk away.”
John “Divine G” Whitfield
Whitfield was a founding member of the theatre program who maintains he was wrongfully convicted of murder. Since his release from Sing Sing in 2012, he is now a novelist, screen writer, playwright, internet radio talk show host, actor, film director and producer, as well as a youth counsellor in New York. As an author, he has written eight novels (seven of which have been adapted into screenplays), three audio books, and has won five American writing awards.
He is in the film, but not as himself. The magnetic Colman Domingo plays him, while he cameos as a book fan who asks his fictional self for an autograph at a book signing. He also is a producer on the film.
Brent Buell
Played by the actor Paul Raci, Buell is the glue that held the whole thing together. It's a role we've seen in many movies before, sort of like Michelle Pfeiffer channelled in Dangerous Minds, or Whoopie Goldberg in Sister Act 2: Back in the Habit. The charismatic and compassionate educator who sees potential in a group of ne'er do wells where nobody else does.
Buell is the actor/director who who dedicated his time and talents to helping incarcerated individuals find their voice through theatre. Both the film and the original Esquire article portray him as a compassionate and committed mentor to any prisoner who wanted his help, and to some who didn’t. He wrote the original Breakin’ the Mummy’s Code, about six convicts “who each write separate plays and then splice them together into one ridiculous romp”.
He is now an author, actor, producer and playwrite.
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