Rehabilitation Through the Arts, otherwise known as RTA — this is the real-life program that inspired the film Sing Sing(2024).
The program started at Sing Sing Correctional Facility, a maximum-security prison in Ossining, New York. Founded by Katherine Vockins, the program sought to provide an alternative solution to the punishment-based solutions of the U.S. prison system.
RTA works with professional teaching artists in year-round workshops in theatre, dance, music, creative writing and visual arts.
In 1996, Vockins was approached by a small group of incarcerated men who had dreams of writing a play. In 2001, those men became the founding members of Rehabilitation Through the Arts. Their names are John "Divine G" Whitfield, Dewey Bozella, David Wayne Britton, Sean "Dino" Johnson, Derek Rogers, Robert Sanchez, Mark Wallace and Vince Warren.
Its impact on the inmates was evaluated by the John Jay College for Criminal Justice, and the study found that it had a positive impact on prisoner Pavle Stanimirovic, one of RTA's first participants.
Board member and former inmate Sean "Dino" Johnson says that he was struggling to communicate, and the program gave him a vocabulary and sense of understanding of other people.
Clarence "Divine Eye" Maclin was once known as one of the most feared men at Sing Sing before being introduced to RTA by chance at a prison chapel performance. The freedom of expression that was displayed on stage drew Maclin to the program, where he eventually became a key participant in various theatre productions.
The film Sing Sing dramatizes the development of an original RTA play Breakin' the Mummy's Code, a show about six convicts who each write separate plays and then splice them together into one. The film stars Colman Domingo as John "Divine G" Whitfield, who serves as an executive producer on the film. The ensemble cast is made up of formerly incarcerated men playing fictionalized versions of themselves, including Maclin and Johnson.