Dar He: The Story of Emmett Till

The Performance

In 1955, a 14-year-old black Chicago youth traveled to the Mississippi Delta with country kinfolk and southern cooking on his mind. He walked off the train and into a world he could never understand — a world of thick color lines, of hard-held class systems and unspeakable taboos. Young Emmett crossed that line and stepped into his gruesome fate by whistling at a white woman. This riveting play chronicles the murder, trial and unbelievable confession of the men accused of Till's lynching. The one-actor, multiple-character original drama is available in 90-minute full-length production for mixed general audiences, plus a 50-minute student version, recommended for grades 8-up, with accompanying study guide.

Actor and playwright Mike Wiley spent the first decade of his professional career fulfilling a focused mission to bring educational theatre to young audiences. His acclaimed work has now expanded to performing arts centers and universities nationwide. In the early days of his career, Wiley found few theatrical resources to shine light on key events and figures in black history. In an impressive body of original dramas, Wiley has introduced countless students to stories and legacies of Emmett Till, the Tuskegee Airmen, Henry "Box" Brown and more. Wiley holds a Masters of Fine Arts from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and has appeared on the Discovery Channel, The Learning Channel and the National Geographic Channel and has been profiled in Our State magazine. During 2010, he gained additional acclaim and multiple "Best Actor" awards at film festivals in the US and Europe for the impressive Rob Underhill short film EMPTY SPACE, and his newest film WOLF WHISTLE appears on a similar trajectory. Wiley is currently the Lehman Brady Visiting Professor at Duke University's Center for Documentary Studies and was featured at the 2009 Black Theatre Festival. He has been jury-selected for professional industry showcases by both the Midwest Arts Federation and South Arts. The theatrical adaptation of Dar He: The Story of Emmett Till is directed by Serena Ebhardt. Wiley's additional professional touring productions include Blood Done Sign My Name, One Noble Journey: A Box Marked Freedom, and five more original one-person/multi-character works. Wiley's newest play, The Parchman Hour, an ensemble performance commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Freedom Riders, begins touring in 2011.

In a Word…

"Mike is a brilliant artist and educator... mending the broken world through the power of story, and making scholarship and art speak to the breach in our common life..." - Tim Tyson, author of the best-selling BLOOD DONE SIGN MY NAME

"Dar He Is The Best of the Best... By our count, there were 426 theatrical productions in the Triangle in 2006; but only one of them - the stirring multimedia presentation of Dar He: The Story of Emmett Till - made all four Top 10 lists published by the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill news media. A one-man show written and performed by Mike Wiley and directed by Serena Ebhardt, Dar He was a devastating dramatization of one of the most infamous murders of the Civil Rights era... so packed with intense, tight characterizations and creatively-portrayed locales that we were rapt from the very first word. Those first words are spoken by Look reporter William Bradford Huey, as he begins to tell us what he learned from the men responsible for the death of 14-year-old Emmett "Bo" Till. Wiley is a marvel to watch as the characters he portrays appear and disappear before us. Wiley recreates Till, Huey, and all of the other characters with a depth and clarity that make each one readily identifiable, and as distinct as an entire cast of players could make them." - Robert McDowell, Triangle Theatre Reviews

News

The world premiere of the new feature film adaptation of Mike Wiley's DAR HE: THE LYNCHING OF EMMETT TILL will be at the prestigious Pan African Film Festival (PAFF) in Los Angeles, CA in February 9-20, 2012.   PAFF will screen 120 films from the United States, Africa, Europe, the Caribbean, South America, the South Pacific and Canada made by and/or about people of African descent.  With annual attendance in excess of 40,000 people, PAFF is the largest and most prestigious international Black film festival in the United States. 

As in the original play from which the film is adapted, playwright/actor Mike Wiley portrays all roles in the film.

"Mike Wiley’s ability to transform himself into many characters carries this film much farther than the usual acting triumph of multiple characters does, because by portraying an entire cast, black, white, female or male, he addresses the heinous nature of hate. His work reminds us in every frame that we are all of one humanity. His uncanny ability to transform himself allows us to experience this piece of history in all its horror. This is a seminal piece of American history all the more important for its disregard of justice or human life. By keeping the cast to one man playing many roles, we cannot ignore that we are all connected; Dar He invokes Anton Chekov’s words for the readers of his plays: to say to us “You live badly, my friends.” – Deirdre Haj, Executive Director of The Full Frame Documentary Film Festival, Durham, NC

For additional information, visit: www.DarHeMovie.com

Live Performance Preview

Click here to see a one-min. trailer of the film WOLF WHISTLE.