HBO Adapting Stage Version of Ta-Nehisi Coates's Between the World and Me as Film
(© Eduardo Montes-Bradley/Creative Commons)
HBO will adapt the stage version of Ta-Nehisi Coates's Between the World and Me as a special event film to air this fall.
The film will be directed by Kamilah Forbes, executive director of the Apollo Theater, where the work premiered in 2018. Between the World and Me will combine elements of the stage play, readings from Coates's book of the same name, and documentary and archival footage from the actors' home lives. Forbes, Coates, and Susan Kelechi Watson are executive producers, with Roger Ross Williams producing. HBO will make a charitable donation to both the Apollo and Howard University in honor of the film.
First published in 2015, Between the World and Me is a letter to Coates's teenage son and recounts his experiences growing up in Baltimore and his fears of daily violence against the Black community.
