Herbert Blau and the actors he was directing were nervous. Standing backstage before their performance of Samuel Becketts Waiting for Godot, they would peek through the curtain at the audience that had gathered. The venue hadnt hosted a performance in forty years, but each seat was occupied. The play, which premiered four years earlier in 1953, was being performed for a unique audience: prisoners in San Quentin State Prison, just north of San Francisco.

Blau chose the play in part because it...