Prison Plays at Fishkill

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/15/opinion/editorials/cyrano-behind-bars.html

At the same time, she and the rest of the R.T.A. team are regularly reminded of how the outside world views their work. Mr. Spivey-Jones, for one, was convicted of second-degree murder. Mr. Scatamacchia remembers one man asking, “Do you spend as much time helping the families that were [expletive] up by these guys as you do helping these guys?”

He thinks about the question often, knowing there are people who have been gravely harmed by many of the men he works with, and who “want these men to rot inside for the rest of their lives.”

Mr. Scatamacchia is sympathetic to that emotion, but he pushes back gently: “I understand your pain and anger, but what’s to be gained by locking someone up and letting them rot? Because most people get out, and if we don’t invest time and energy into rehabilitating these people, they’re going to come out worse than they went in.”

After the second performance of “Cyrano” ended and the standing ovation died down, corrections officers led the audience through the large front door of the prison gym and back to the guards’ station, to be processed for release to the parking lot. The actors waited, then returned to their cells.