The Castle 1:30 PM Sunday, May 24
University Center

"The Castle" is an off-broadway play that has been running in New York City for over a year. “The Castle” had its origins in 1967, when David Rothenberg, the show’s director, produced “Fortune and Men’s Eyes,” an Off Broadway play about a man’s experience in a youth detention center. He went on to establish the nonprofit Fortune Society, which seeks to improve prison conditions and help ex-convicts. The castle in the title is the society’s stately halfway house on the Upper West Side, for people newly out of the penal system.

Four players on stools onstage — Angel Ramos, an AVP facilitator, Vilma Ortiz Donovan, Kenneth Harrigan and Casimiro Torres, who all collaborated with Mr. Rothenberg on the script to tell their true stories.

“I knew that the criminal justice system was broken but not till I saw this show did I realize how much. It was gripping and thought provoking. Perhaps those in power should see it. Who knows, it may provide for better alternatives. It was worth the price of admission.” Angel Ramos

"The Castle" is powerful stuff. It's in-your-face real lives that have made it through some pretty hard times. When the four walk out onto the stage they look like you and me. They are four individuals who have found a strength within themselves to rebuild lives from damaged childhoods, lives of crimes, both singular and plural and repeated incarcerations. The Castle, on NY Upper West Side offered each an open and accepting hand when they had enough of same old-same-old. It gives voice to a growing segment of the public, urging that we reconsider how we treat former offenders. You have never seen four people more proud to declare their status as taxpayers.