Powerful. Poignant. And now, Emmy-nominated.
Collaboraction Theatre’s Trial in the Delta: The Murder of Emmett Till will return as a live, fully-produced stage production during Black History Month, co-presented with The DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center, 740 E. 56th Pl., Chicago, February 9-19, 2023.
Trial in the Delta: The Murder of Emmett Till, adapted by G. Riley Mills and Willie Round, co-directed by Anthony Moseley and Dana N. Anderson, is the first-ever stage adaptation taken directly from the unearthed trial transcript of Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, the two men found not guilty of murdering Emmett Till.
Collaboraction’s Trial in the Delta: The Murder of Emmett Till reveals the courage it took for Emmett Till’s uncle, Mose Wright, played by Darren Jones (left), to point out J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant during the 1955 trial. Adia Alli (right) portrayed Mamie Till-Mobley. Production photos by Joel Maisonet.
The production plays like a live reenactment of the actual court proceedings that ocurred in Sumner, Mississippi in 1955, one of the most monumental injustices of the U.S. legal system in the 20th century. Actors playing witnesses for the defense and prosecution, including Emmett Till’s mother, Mamie Till-Bradley and other family members, will be seated among the audience, bringing the courtroom action to vivid life in a documentary-style setting. Key characters, based in real life, include judge Curtis Swango, defense attorney J.J. Breeland, district attorney Gerald Chatham, and, of course, J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant, the two men who were found not guilty of murdering Emmett Till, but later admitted to the heinous crime.
“Once in a lifetime, if we are lucky, a project like this comes along and all we can do is play our part to serve the greater good of telling an important story and belonging to each other,” said Anthony Moseley, Artistic Director, Collaboraction, and co-director of Trial in the Delta. “There are many plays about Emmett Till, but they are fictions created out of horrid facts that only guess at the actual language. When audiences experience how everything actually went down in that Mississippi courtroom, the impact is even more profound.”
“Trial in the Delta allows contemporary audiences to experience this flagrant and historic racial injustice of our legal system,” added Perri Irmer, President and CEO, The DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center. “Placed in the context of today's much-publicized trials against Black men, this new work also illuminates ways in which history repeats itself.”
Trial in the Delta launches with a student matinee, Thursday, February 9 at 10:30 a.m., followed by public performances Friday and Saturday, February 10 and 11 at 7 p.m.; Thursday, Friday and Saturday, February 16-18 at 7 p.m., and Sunday, February 19 at 3 p.m. Tickets, $30-$55, are on-sale now at collaboraction.org.
Trial in the Delta is recommended for ages 12 and up. The production runs two hours and will be followed by a Crucial Conversation with the audience. Email info@collaboraction.org for information on student and group rates, and private event performances.
For more information, visit collaboraction.org, or follow the company on Twitter, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram or YouTube.
Watch the sizzle video for Trial in the Delta: The Murder of Emmett Till.
Trial in the Delta: Behind the scenes
The Emmy- nominated NBC5/Collaboraction co-production The Lost Story of Emmett Till: Trial in the Delta is now playing on NBC’s Peacock streaming service.
In 1955, a jury of 12 white men decided that J.W. Milam and Roy Bryant were not guilty of murdering Emmett Till, though there was plenty of evidence that they did and they later admitted they killed him in an interview in Look Magazine. The trial transcript would have shown the injustice of the proceedings, but it was never properly filed and disappeared.
The original 1955 trial transcript, the State of Mississippi vs. Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, surfaced in 2005 and Marion Brooks, anchor and investigative reporter at NBC5 Chicago, found it online while conducting research for her own documentary series, The Lost Story of Emmett Till. For the series finale, Brooks wanted to find a Chicago theater company to create a staged reading drawn directly from the trial transcript. She asked her colleague, NBC5 entertainment reporter LeeAnn Trotter, for a referral, and having covered several of Collaboraction’s past projects that paired live theater with social justice, Trotter recommended Collaboraction.
To bring the once-hidden trial to life, Collaboraction commissioned Chicago playwrights G. Riley Mills and Willie Round to co-adapt the original 354-page transcript into a 90-page immersive theatrical reenactment of what actually occurred in that 1955 rural Mississippi courtroom. In February, 2022, the original NBC5 Chicago/Collaboraction tele-play, The Lost Story of Emmett Till: Trial in the Delta, was filmed in one day with multiple cameras on a closed set at NBC’s Chicago studio. The Lost Story of Emmett Till: Trial in the Delta premiered on the big screen at the Gene Siskel Film Center on May 11, 2022, before debuting with multiple broadcasts on NBC5 Chicago.
Just last month, the NBC5/Collaboraction co-production was nominated for a Chicago/Midwest Emmy Award from the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences for Outstanding Achievement in "Human Interest - Long Form.” It remains free to watch on NBCChicago.com and the NBC5 Chicago app, and can be streamed on numerous services including Peacock, Apple TV, Roku and Amazon Fire.
Back in February, days after filming, Collaboraction re-staged Trial in the Delta live on a minimal set, two shows only, at the DuSable Museum. The live events brought provocative new life to the story of Emmett Till’s trial using a docu-drama style that commingled the audience “in the courtroom” alongside actors portraying Emmett Till’s mother, other family members, and witnesses for the defense and prosecution.
And the Crucial Conversation audience talkbacks after? They were “on fire,” brimming with passionate reactions and revelations from audience members and artists, from all backgrounds.
The NBC Chicago/Collaboraction co-production The Lost Story of Emmett Till:
Trial in the Delta is now Emmy-nominated. Watch the trailer.
About Emmett Till
Emmett Till (via Wikimedia)
The murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till in 1955 brought national attention to the racial violence and injustice prevalent in the deep south. While on a trip from his hometown, Chicago, to visit relatives in Money, Mississippi, Till went to the Bryant store with his cousins, and may have whistled at Carolyn Bryant, a white woman. Her husband, Roy Bryant, and brother-in-law, J.W. Milam, kidnapped and brutally murdered Till, dumping his body in the Tallahatchie River. The newspaper coverage and murder trial galvanized a generation of young African Americans to join the Civil Rights Movement out of fear that such an incident could happen to friends, family, or even themselves.
The longstanding disappearance of the transcript and most of the courthouse documentation is one of the great mysteries of a case that helped galvanize the civil rights movement and continues to garner worldwide attention a half-century later. Its absence would be more than a historical curiosity. It could also hamstring efforts to further prosecute the case. In 2005, a copy of the transcript surfaced and made its way to the F.B.I and led to reopening the case. Hopes, however, were dashed in December, 2021, when the Department of Justice closed the case again without bringing justice.
This presentation of Trial in the Delta: The Murder of Emmett Till is made possible in part thanks to generous support from AV Chicago, Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, Joseph and Bessie Feinberg Foundation, Illinois Arts Council Agency, Monahan Law Group, LLC, Rotary Club of Naperville and Pinnacle Performance Company.
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About Collaboraction: Changing the map and removing barriers within the theater industry
Collaboraction is a 25-year-old, ethno-diverse company that uses theater and performance to incite social change on Chicago’s most critical issues. Collaboraction produces live and digital performances, anti-racism workshops, and youth programs that incite change and grow equity in Chicago.
Since its founding in 1996, Collaboraction has pushed artistic boundaries working with more than 4,000 artists to bring over 100 productions and events to more than 150,000 unique audience members, and has inspired measurable positive change on social justice in Chicago and beyond.
Collaboraction’s work includes Trial in the Delta: The Murder of Emmett Till, SKETCHBOOK, PEACEBOOK, Moonset Sunrise, The Light Youth Ensemble, Crime Scene, Forgotten Future and Gender Breakdown. In addition to live performances, community building and video production, the company centers and presents its work in Chicago neighborhoods historically overlooked like Englewood, Austin and Lawndale.
In 2022, Collaboraction was one of the first theaters in the U.S. to be certified by On Our Team, a national trade organization advocating for pay equity and transparency in the live theater industry.
Collaboraction, under the leadership of Artistic Director Anthony Moseley and Producer and Interim Managing Director Carla Stillwell, has been acknowledged for innovation and inclusivity by using theater as a tool for social change with numerous awards including the Foster Innovation Award from Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, the Multi-Racial Unity Award from the First Unitarian Church-Chicago, a Stand For the Arts Award from Comcast and OvationTV, and an Otto Award from New York’s Castillo Theatre.
Collaboraction is supported by The Chicago Community Trust, the National Endowment for the Arts, Illinois Humanities, Paul M. Angell Foundation, Marc and Jeanne Malnati Family Foundation, Joseph and Bessie Feinberg Foundation, the Bayless Family Foundation, Spreading Hearts, AV Chicago, the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, and the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency.
For more information, visit collaboraction.org, or follow the company on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok or YouTube.
About The DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center
The DuSable Black History Museum and Education Center, a Smithsonian Affiliate, is the nation’s first independent Museum dedicated to the collection, preservation and study of the history and culture of African Americans and people of African descent. For more information, please visit dusablemuseum.org and follow @dusablemuseum.