How performing Shakespeare helped two murderers find grace

“Do as the heavens have done, forget your evil;

with them forgive yourself.” – “The Winter’s Tale,” Act 5, Scene 1

Jerry Guenthner was walking through the prison yard at the break of dawn when he heard the voice.

Haven’t you put your mother through enough?

Why We Wrote This

The organization Shakespeare Behind Bars has helped violent offenders rediscover their humanity. In this story, two murderers come to “be wise hereafter / And seek for grace.”

He spun around. Who’d just spoken to him? It was 6:15 a.m., June 6, 1990. There was no one else in the yard at the Kentucky State Reformatory, where he was four years into a 65-year sentence.

It wasn’t an apparition, like Banquo’s ghost or that of Hamlet’s father. He was just having a rare moment, alone in the yard, heading to chow, admiri