Our History
In 1966, David Rothenberg, a theatrical press agent for Broadway and Off-Broadway productions, received a script of a prison drama by a relatively unknown Canadian writer named John Herbert. The play,Fortune and Men’s Eyes, depicted the gritty reality of life in a boy’s reformatory and was based on the author’s own experiences as a young man in prison. Rothenberg reviewed the script and offered it to many of his colleagues, all of whom passed on the opportunity to produce it – they believed the play’s brutal themes made it too much of a financial risk. Undeterred and inspired by Herbert’s social message, Rothenberg used his $12,000 in life savings to produce the play himself.
Fortune and Men’s Eyes opened at the Actors’ Playhouse in New York City’s Sheridan Square on February 23, 1967. In preparation for the performance, Rothenberg arranged for the actors and himself to tour Rikers Island. As he looked around a dank prison cell, he thought, “If this is how we warehouse kids with problems, how can they help but to emerge as anything but worse?”
The play opened to angered and electrified audiences. Many people simply could not believe that prisons could breed the degree of cruelty and inhumanity portrayed by the actors. At the end of one fateful Tuesday performance, a member of the audience openly questioned the play’s accuracy. In response, Pat McGarry, a former prisoner who had also come to see the show, stood up and held the theater spellbound with his tale of life in “the joint.” McGarry spent 40 minutes talking about how prison life degrades individuals and disgraces a culture that normally prides itself on decency. The audience was speechless.
Post-show discussions between the cast and the audience of Fortune and Men’s Eyes soon became a Tuesday night tradition. McGarry returned week after week with another former prisoner, Clarence Cooper, and together with Rothenberg they discussed prison conditions in the United States. After The New York Times ran a story on the talks, titled “The Drama Continues After the Curtain Falls,” the trio began to receive requests from civic, church and school groups. Public forums were organized by people who cared about the impact that prison life was having upon inmates, former prisoners, and the integrity of our society.
It wasn’t long before Rothenberg was overwhelmed by requests. In his mind, the only solution was to create a forum that would not only give former offenders a voice, but would also provide them with the tools they needed to help rebuild their lives. He called his organization The Fortune Society, taking the name from the play’s title, which in turn originated from William Shakespeare’s Sonnet 29, which begins : “When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes/ I all alone, beweep my outcast state...”
