The feel-good story of the day. Lawrence Downes of the New York Times attends the fourth night of the Sing Sing inmates' production of Oedipus Rex.

Sing Sing is not known as a progressive place. But its theater program is a rarity in New York prisons. It relies on a nonprofit group, Rehabilitation Through the Arts, and the savvy benevolence of Sing Sing's superintendent, Brian Fischer.

....As I watched, I wondered what it would be like to be defined by my own worst sins. It struck me that when people are locked up for horrible crimes, a lot of goodness and beauty necessarily get locked up too. It also seemed that the Theban society onstage - though afflicted by plague, vengeance and divine cruelty - was probably gentler and saner than the one the inmates knew. Its members clearly cared for one another, and were not numb to grief.

A good reminder that we are all more than the sum of our misdeeds.