Prison Break Weekend

Sat.-Sun., Aug. 1-2, 11:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m., free with $8-$12 admission, Eastern State Penitentiary, 22nd Street and Fairmount Avenue, 215-236-3300, easternstate.org.

by Chelsea Calhoun

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It's not every day that you get to escape from jail. This weekend, though, Prison Break attendees will be able to scale a 24-foot inflatable rock-climbing wall over Eastern State — an homage to the prison's only successful escape in 141 years, made when Leo Callahan hoisted himself over the walls with the help of a handmade ladder in 1923.

But this weekend's true stars will be Clarence Klinedinst, an ordinary burglar, and "Slick Willie" Sutton, a notable American bank robber. In performances going on every hour, actors portraying Klinedinst and Sutton will debate the pair's conflicting accounts about the formation of the prison's only successfully completed underground tunnel.

"Sutton claims he was the brains behind it," says Linda Neylon, assistant program director for education at Eastern State. "Others say, obviously it was Klinedinst's plan, as it went from his cell to the terrace."

On April 3, 1945, a dozen inmates, including the two men, crawled the length of a 97-foot underground tunnel. All 12 men involved in the attempt — one of more than 100 in the prison's history — were captured and returned to the prison. Sutton was found within two minutes, just two blocks away.

Sat.-Sun., Aug. 1-2, 11:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m., free with $8-$12 admission, Eastern State Penitentiary, 22nd Street and Fairmount Avenue, 215-236-3300, easternstate.org.