Oscar nominee Colman Domingo’s new film, “Sing Sing” is guaranteed to pull at your heartstrings. Directed by Greg Kwedar, “Sing Sing” is inspired by the Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA) program founded in 1996 at Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining, New York.
The program gives incarcerated people access to theater arts which according to the RTA website is statistically proven to help break the cycle of incarceration with “less than 3% of RTA members returning to prison, compared to 60% nationally.”
A differentiating aspect about the cast of “Sing Sing” is that several of the actors, including Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin, were formerly incarcerated men who participated in the RTA theater program. Maclin is also credited as a writer and producer of the film. His performance alongside Colman Domingo has been lauded by critics as a “star-making role.”
The Sentinel asked Maclin how the experience has changed his life. “I’ve grown up so much more because of art and being around people who share the same spirit and want to use the arts in the same way. I’m not a different guy, I’m just a more full and more complete person because of art,” he said.
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The Sentinel also spoke to RTA alum and film co-star Sean “Dino” Johnson and asked how viewers can be a part of dismantling a seemingly indomitable industrial prison labor system.
“It begins with getting people to bring more resources into prisons and pour into these men and women because the arts are the most powerful vehicle for transformation,” he said.
Johnson, who currently serves as a board member for RTA and as an executive director for another non-profit organization shared, “RTA saved my life. We need to figure out more ways of bringing these resources to people and give them the skill sets they need to be effective communicators who can better themselves.”
The film’s director, Greg Kwedar, resonates with Johnson’s sentiments regarding the importance of bringing resources to prisons as he and co-screenwriter and producer Clint Bentley previously volunteered with an RTA program at Stormville’s Green Haven Correctional Facility.
Kwedar tells the Sentinel that when it was time to cast the leading role in “Sing Sing,” Colman Domingo was his first and only choice. When Kwedar and Bentley first connected with Colman via a Zoom call and shared their six-year journey developing the film, Kwedar recalls Colman saying, ‘“…At this point in my career, I’m realizing that some projects are seeking to teach you something, you don’t know what it is, you just know, that it’s trying to, and I’m saying yes to that at this point in my life.’ And Colman came on, and he helped us build this movie,” said Kwedar.
“He brought all of himself as an actor, as a storyteller, and as a producer. He put the full weight of his influence behind making this movie happen,” added the director.
Following up on what Kwedar shared, The Sentinel asked Colman Domingo what had he learned from playing the role of John “Divine G” Whitfield?
He said, “I’m still learning, it’s not over yet. We have a motto that says ‘trust the process’. I think the intention was to be a part of something that’ll change the minds of human beings. When I found out how this program works, I wanted to be a part of helping to tell a story about our humanity, and how people can find light, in the darkest places, that’s been very intentional and also quite personal.”
He added, “I think I’m still in the middle of [the journey] where I feel like I knew that I intentionally wanted to be a part of something that could show black and brown men in a different light.
“We’re still in this process, it’s not over yet. We created a film that’s not only meaningful, it has the power to be impactful. It’s not a documentary in any way. And it’s not a ‘prison film.’ It’s a film about human beings, working with what they have, for the betterment of themselves and society. I’m in the process of seeing how it shifts minds and hearts so I’m not at the end of the journey,” said Domingo.
Another unconventional yet distinctive aspect about “Sing Sing” was its profit share model which made for a more equitable set without the traditional topline hierarchies. Producer Clint Bentley shared how Domingo fully embraced this.
“One of the foundational pillars of our movie was the financial structure behind the film, in which everyone got paid the same rate. There’s pay parity, and everyone participates in the profits. It’s not [typically] done this way, [with] independent films. So to have Colman as number one on the call sheet, fully embracing that like, ‘Yes, this is how this movie should be made,’ was so incredibly powerful in helping us set the tone for the way that we were doing things differently on this film,” said Bentley.
“To build from the ground up this idea that everyone has the same inherent value felt empowering and everyone brought their whole selves to the project. And for the [RTA] alumni cast, bringing their life experience to the project, they were bringing their stories, and then they were owners of their own story as well,” he noted.
Concluding, Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin shared that his favorite scenes in the film were the reenactments of “Hamlet,” “…because I appreciate Shakespeare so much.”
He adds, “The whole process is an experience that I would never trade for anything else. Every moment, every conversation, every person that I met on set, and every fingerprint on the project is supposed to be there.”
“Sing Sing” distributed by A24 is currently in theaters.
