Screening of Award-Winning Film Sing Sing, Jan. 29

Celebrating the transformative power of theater and storytelling, this film screening is part of the Quick’s Global Theatre Series, curated by Broadway and off-Broadway producer Cheryl Wiesenfeld.

The Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts will host a screening of the film Sing Sing, on Wednesday, Jan. 29 at 7 p.m., followed by a discussion with Brent Buell, whose work inspired the award-winning film. 

Sing Sing is based on an actual prison theater program called Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA). Started in 1996 after a small group of men in prison expressed an interest in putting on a play at the prison, the program was formed with RTA founder Katherine Vockins. That year, they wrote and staged their first play. RTA is now active in eight prisons throughout New York, including men and women’s prisons with maximum and medium security. RTA teaches incarcerated people how to restore their lives through theater which, in stark contrast to the current system of criminal punishment, is based on respect and human dignity.

Sing Sing powerfully captures the experience of a group of men as they reluctantly join the play’s cast, gradually becoming part of the journey and life of the production, and, in the process, transforming themselves.

Directed by Greg Kwedar and starring Colman Domingo (Rustin, The Color Purple, Fear the Walking Dead) and Clarence Maclin, the film has received more than 75 award nominations with 23 wins, including Gotham Awards for Social Justice, Outstanding Supporting Performance, and Outstanding Lead Performance. Accepting his Gotham Award, Domingo thanked his colleagues from RTA and the film who “found art to be the parachute that saved them,” a heartfelt comment that resonated with Wiesenfeld.

“That is what we are doing, too,” she said of the Quick’s Global Theatre Series. “My feeling is that theater transforms lives. It changes lives, and that’s what this program has shown.”

Designed to highlight social justice-driven theatre work, over the years the Global Theatre Series has shared 10 theater works that demonstrate theater's power to change our world. The series has previously focused on incarceration in such plays as Cell, Gun Country, Shared Sentences, and Surviving Troubled Waters: From Prison to Freedom through Music.

Following the film, Wiesenfeld will moderate a discussion with Buell and Patrick Brooks, an associate professor of visual and performing arts in Fairfield's College of Arts and Sciences, alongside possibly one or more of the talented actors from the film.

Brent Buell is a playwright, director, and producer. As a volunteer with RTA, he directed theater in New York’s maximum-security prisons for 10 years, staging plays ranging from John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men to original works by the prisoners. One of Buell’s plays, the comedy Breakin’ the Mummy’s Code, premiered at the Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining, N.Y., and became the inspiration for the production company A24’s film Sing Sing. In the movie, Buell is portrayed by Oscar-nominated Paul Raci.

Sponsors for this event are WPKN and Jamie Hulley Arts Foundation. Tickets are now on sale at quickcenter.com for $25 for general admission, $15 for Quick Members, and $5 Fairfield University students. For more information, contact the Quick Center Box Office at 203-254-4010 or quickboxoffice@fairfield.edu, Monday through Friday, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

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