‘Sing Sing’ delves into true story of theater program at notorious prison

The new film “Sing Sing” is getting rave reviews, critics describing it as “not your average prison movie,” and at least one is already throwing out the word “Oscar.”

The main idea is this: People incarcerated at the notorious Sing Sing prison in New York put on intricate plays. If you think you know what happens next, you probably don’t.

“Sing Sing” is unexpected in many ways, including in its film business model. For more on all of that, the Standard was joined by its Texas-based producer, Monique Walton, and director Greg Kwedar. Listen to the interview above or read the transcript below.

This transcript has been edited lightly for clarity:

Texas Standard: Greg, I’d like to start with your discovery of this story. Not just that there’s a theater program at a prison, but this particular play that they performed. Can you talk about that?

Greg Kwedar: Yeah, sure. I came across this story quite unexpectedly over eight years ago. I had been producing a short documentary inside of a maximum security prison in Kansas, and it was my first time ever behind the walls.

We were doing a doc about something else, but I passed by a cell, and there was a young man raising a rescue dog inside of the cell, and immediately it just stopped me in my tracks. And all of my expectations about prison and incarcerated people were upended in that moment, because I saw the healing that was happening in both directions between this man and this animal. And I was just desperate to know, was there anyone else out there doing things differently?

And in the middle of the night in my hotel room, I just got on Google and this program, Rehabilitation Through the Arts, in New York came up. They put on a lot of the classic productions, but there was this Esquire article about a 2005 production of a time-traveling musical comedy called “Breaking the Mummy’s Code.”

And this play was so alive – there was a joy in the process that just leaped off the page. And how what seemingly is a small stakes production of this wacky show felt like also life or death stakes to the men who were doing it. I was immediately hooked and committed to trying to figure out how to make this a film.

Monique, did you have any hesitations at all about telling a prison story, or were you on board when when you found out about this specific angle?

Monique Walton: Yeah, I would say I was pretty much on board when I found out about the specific angle. I think that, you know, Greg and [co-writer Clint Bentley] had done about six years of development work by the time they made the project. And so they had developed all these relationships and knew that the right way to tell this story was in collaboration with the community that it’s about.

That part, I was like, I kind of just knew intuitively that that would yield the most powerful rendering of the story. And some of the scenes are truly – you know, like the audition sequence, for example – was just set up as an audition and certain scenes were only one line on the page – they talk about their perfect place. But in the film it’s this kind of anchoring scene.

So I think that there was a beautiful dance that was happening all the time, because of the energy on set and the openness of everyone to bring their ideas forward.

Greg Kwedar: Yeah, and in a movie, in many ways, about shedding the labels that society puts upon you.

It’s hard to define what this movie is and its construction, because yes, there’s stage elements, there’s screen elements, there’s unscripted elements, but it’s in the harmony of how all these things work together. There is drama, but there’s also a lot of warmth and comedy. All of this somehow synthesizes into an experience that wouldn’t be what it is without the full sum of its parts.[102.7]

Monique Walton: I guess one of the things that I was most nervous about in the beginning was the fact that we were shooting on film and having and giving space to that. There was a sense of, “oh no, are we just going to, you know, roll…”

Greg Kwedar: “Are we going to run out?”

Monique Walton: “Are we going to run out of film?” And, you know, that didn’t end up being the case. You know, a lot of it was, I think, again, it was finding that rhythm, finding that alchemy within the ensemble to have space to play.

But then, you know, when we got to a certain part in the production, when we began our production filming in a decommissioned prison – which was really hard physically, emotionally… Taxing, mentally. But once we left that location, after about two weeks, we were in a theater location, and then we were in our rehearsal space location… Like we were wrapping up earlier. And I would be like, “wait, what? Did we get everything?

But then it turned out, yeah, there was so much capture.

From left, actors Colman Domingo and Clarence Maclin in a scene from “Sing Sing.” Dominic Leon

There’s so much joy in this movie, and I think you guys have used to the word “hope,” but there’s also a lot of tension. There’s always a little bit of a looming factor of you’re not sure what’s going to happen. This place is a little scary and unpredictable. Can you talk about balancing that and where are you finding that on set, too, especially when you were in the decommissioned prison?

Greg Kwedar: Yeah, I mean, what’s always interesting is the space that consists even in one scene or even in one look to the whole both of those realities together, which feels decidedly human. You know, you could be having the best day of your life, and you get one phone call – it just puts you on your knees.

A big thing that, that Clarence [Maclin, co-lead playing himself in the film] talks about is that prison is sort of a microcosm for the macro society. And so all the things that exist for us out in the world happen in here, but can just be intensified.

And so we felt the depth of despair, sort of at degrees that are hard to fathom. But also the roaring kind of joy of connection and love at a magnitude that, you know, I haven’t really felt on the outside of these walls.

I want to ask about this equitable filmmaking that “Sing Sing” models. Monique, it’s something I know Greg has tried before. I think it was new to you. Were you into it?

Monique Walton: Yes, I was really into it because I loved trying different ideas, approaching independent film differently, thinking about how to kind of shift our ideas around sustainability and around how these films get made.

So just to explain the model very simply: it’s structured around pay parity, which is everybody gets paid the same rate – from our lead star Colman Domingo all the way across the board through post. And then everyone participates in the profits, based on the phase of the film that they work on.

So what you say with that structure is that everyone has the same value, and the only real variable is time.

Do you think this can really work in most cases or in many? Is this scalable?

Greg Kwedar: That was really the question that drove Clint, Monique and I coming into”Sing Sing,” and decidedly it could.

And I think we need more of us to question these systems and processes and just always just ask really at every level, like, how can you make this phase of a process healthier, more fair, kinder? Do we need this intense stratification of pay between the artists that work on a film? Can we encourage more opportunities for true ownership?

And when you do that, it opens up, I think, a greater capacity for the art to shine, for better work to come into the room.

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