You’ve never seen digital theatre like this.
“The new virtual production offers a brilliantly remarkable piece of online editing and direction by the play's original cast and director Shirley Jo Finney… Every aspect of Emmett Till's personality is shared with stunning realism by Lorenz Arnell, from Till's youthful exuberance to the sheer terror he faced at the end of his life. Each of the other four actors, Rico E. Anderson, Adenrele Ojo, Bernard K. Addison, and Karen Malina White, fully inhabit each of the play's other characters from Till's mother and grandmother to other family relatives and Till's youthful companions. By the end of the play, which is often brutal as well as entirely entertaining to watch, you will feel as if you have stepped inside the lives of real people living in extraordinary circumstances often out of their own control.” — Shari Barrett, BroadwayWorld
"This recording respectfully, powerfully, evokes the legend of Till’s last journey." - Dany Margolies, Southern California News Group
“A deeply powerful experience... riveted my attention, and left me emotionally spent... Kudos to Fountain Theatre.” — Paul Myrvold, Theatre Notes
“RICH, NUANCED… Unlike other Zoom productions I’ve seen, this one hooked me early, both in the way it was presented and photographed and certainly thanks to the power of the acting on display.” — Sylvie Drake, Cultural Weekly
“PURE GENIUS… this review could not be complete without emphasizing the brilliant and seamless way that this play has been transformed from a stage production into an online technological masterpiece.” — Elaine Mura, LA Splash
Watch the Livestream Premiere and enjoy an interactive, beautifully designed experience, or rent the Video on Demand and watch it at your leisure.
The Video on Demand will be available through December 1st, 2020.
Livestream Premiere Aug. 28, 2020. 4pm PDT
The original director and cast of our 2010, multiple award-winning production of The Ballad of Emmett Till by Ifa Bayeza will reunite for a finely produced, live-streamed reading of the play on the 65th anniversary of Till’s murder.
In August, 1955, 14-year-old Emmett Till was visiting relatives in Money, Mississippi when he was accused of whistling at Carolyn Bryant, a white woman who was a cashier at a grocery store. Four days later, Bryant's husband Roy and his half-brother J.W. Milam kidnapped Till, beat him and shot him in the head. The men were tried for murder, but an all-white, male jury acquitted them. Till's murder and open casket funeral galvanized the emerging Civil Rights movement. Bryant recanted her story in 2017, admitting that the court testimony she gave more than six decades prior was false and stating “Nothing that boy did could ever justify what happened to him.”
“As America is now being challenged to face its racist history, I can think of no project more worthy,” says Fountain artistic director Stephen Sachs. “In addition to being the 65th anniversary of the murder, Aug. 28 also marks the 57th Anniversary of the historic March on Washington in 1963, and a 2020 march on Washington is being planned this year, on that date, as well.”
Part history, part mystery and part ghost story, Bayeza's lyrical integration of past, present, fact and legend turns Emmett’s story into a soaring work of music, poetic language and riveting theatricality. The Fountain’s 2010 West Coast premiere was twice extended and won a combined total of 14 Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle, Ovation, Backstage and NAACP awards for production, direction, playwriting and ensemble. Bernard K. Addison, Rico E. Anderson, Lorenz Arnell, Adenrele Ojo and Karen Malina White will reprise their roles for the online reading, with Shirley Jo Finney again at the helm.
Behind the scenes of an Emmett Till digital rehearsal.