The pandemic has kept many things on hold or at least at bay. But the 1955 Mississippi murder of Mamie Till-Mobley’s 14-year-old son, Emmett Till, brought the cast and crew of Collaboraction together for their first in-person rehearsal in over two years, according to Anthony Moseley, artistic director of the social justice theater company that creates original theatrical and virtual experiences to incite change and grow equity in Chicago.
Collaboraction ran with the challenge with the help of G. Riley Mills and Willie Round and co-directors Moseley and Dana Anderson. The work will be performed for audiences at the DuSable Museum of African American History on Saturday and Sunday. The play will also live on screen as part two of, “The Lost Story of Emmett Till: The Universal Child,” which aired this month on NBC5.
“It was horrific, to be honest,” he said. “Just reading every single line of what Emmett Till went through ... it was horrific for me being a Black man. It was sinister to read and it seemed a little bit demonic, just the way that they would do a 14-year-old boy. It was hard to get through. I had to tell Gary , ‘I gotta go for a walk,’ on many occasions. It’s trauma, repeated trauma over the years. And then you got the George Floyds of the world all over again.
“As we’re listening to the actors, I’m like, ‘Wow, people are finding themselves in these parallels that for us as Black people, it’s second nature stuff to us,’” she said. “We want to bring the story to life not just for us to share Black stories, but also for us to impact social change, to bring light to. Humanity is something we have to raise the stakes on for the universal message here. Something that I liked about that NBC documentary, it’s called “the universal child.” Mamie said that ...
Born in 1962, Jones said Till’s story was the most important story in his life. Jones wants to impart that sense of trauma that Till’s death had at that time through his acting.“By the time I was born, of course, it was still one of the most traumatic and impactful events in our community,” he said. “It’s what you knew as you grew up and it is part of the fabric of my life. It comes up maybe not daily but in times of challenge ... the impact of it.
Sixty-seven years, and still stuck in the quicksand of 'victimhood.'