4 min.
How to Write a Movie About Prison
Crafting the script of Sing Sing — about a real-life theater company, Rehabilitation Through the Arts, in the Sing Sing Correctional Facility in upstate New York — proved an incredibly delicate needle to thread for screenwriters Greg Kwedar and Clint Bentley. “We held the program, and what they were doing, as sacred,” explains Bentley, who adds that the stakes were high. “If we had not done a good job in making this movie, it could have really jeopardized [currently incarcerated people’s] ability to function in prisons.” In this scene, a dress rehearsal for RTA’s upcoming new play, the film’s protagonist, based on the real-life figure John “Divine G” Whitfield (played by Colman Domingo), has a breakdown onstage after learning his parole appeal has been denied.…