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GIVING VOICE: Mike Wiley portrays Emmett Till’s life and death in his one-man play Dar He: The Story of Emmett Till. Photo courtesy of Wiley about the 1906 lynching of three black men in town. Wiley’s research into creating Dar He was painful, he says. But it helped him make sense of why some people hate Barack Obama. “It set me on a course to understanding the backlash that he, as a president, would achieve after he was elected,” Wiley says. The play “came out of a similar kind of backlash — white America in the Deep South and around the county who saw the Brown v. Board of Education as a slap in the face. The killing of Emmett Till was in part a response to that. The lynching of a number of African-American men in that time was part of the pushback.” He continues, “With the election of Obama, we hoped that ‘The Talk’ wouldn’t have to happen. But sadly, we saw through our smartphone videos and police dash cams that we have to be forever vigilant and have these talks until the arrest rate of people in our black and brown communities comes to a place where it’s normalized.” This summer, the FBI reopened its investigation into Till’s murder, citing
“new information” that it declined to elaborate upon. The tragedy, which took place more than 65 years ago, is still very much in the public consciousness, making Wiley’s production as current as it is historic. “This [play] is reaching ears that a few years ago may have been deaf,” he says. “But now they are opening and listening and heeding and using the play as a sign of activism.” X
WHAT Dar He: The Story of Emmett Till WHERE N.C. Stage 15 Stage Lane ncstage.org WHEN Wednesday, Sept. 19-Sunday, Sept. 30 Wednesdays-Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. Sundays at 2 p.m. $10 students/$18-$36 general
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SEPT. 12 - 18, 2018
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