The Castle, the Off-Broadway play in which formerly incarcerated New Yorkers tell what life after prison is really like, is going back to where it began: a single benefit matinee on Sunday, November 15 at The Castle, the Fortune Society residence in upper Manhattan that inspired it.
The building lent the play its name. The Castle is the supportive housing residence The Fortune Society runs at 625 West 140th Street, and the piece was built from the lives of people who passed through it. David Rothenberg, who founded The Fortune Society in 1967, conceived and directed it. Its company, Vilma Ortiz Donovan, Philip Hall, Ervin Hunt and Casimiro Torres, speak from real experience of prison and of the slow work of coming home, in several cases their own.
The play has traveled some distance from that address. After a long development process it officially opened at New World Stages in April 2008 and stayed Off-Broadway for more than a year. Since then Rothenberg and changing casts drawn from the Fortune community have taken it to prisons, universities, churches and community groups across the country.
Ortiz Donovan and Torres were among the play's creators and were both in its original cast. “I love that my personal story—my hurt and pain, my hope—as reflected in this play, can help people heal,” Ortiz Donovan said.
Torres described what it means to take the play back inside. “When I return to Rikers Island to perform this play, it is difficult seeing people going through what was once my life,” Torres said. “Sharing my story with audiences, as an actor, gives me a glimpse of my past and reassurance of who I am today …a taxpayer.”
For Rothenberg, the point is the assumptions an audience walks in with. “People tend to have a stereotyped notion of who’s incarcerated,” Rothenberg said. “I think when they see people presenting their lives or being creative, they have to reconsider their preconceived notion.” And of the November date: “The Castle returns to the place where it all started.”
A FOX 5 New York segment from August 2026 looks at the play and the work of The Fortune Society.
Watch the segment on YouTube.
The single performance starts at 2pm, and tickets at $25 are on sale now from The Fortune Society. Founded in 1967, the organization offers housing, treatment, job training, education and family services to people with criminal justice histories. More at fortunesociety.org.
