Blues for Mr. Charlie

Stormbringer Theatre Company presents James Baldwin’s Blues for Mister Charlie, a searing drama set in Mississippi during the Civil Rights Movement. Originally produced by the Actor’s Studio in 1964, the play is a deeply humane, passionate, and poetic drama about race relations in America. James Baldwin wrote the play in response to the deaths of Emmett Till and Medgar Evers. Blues is a fictionalized treatment of the people and events that led to Emmett Till’s murder. The play deals with the murder of a young black man, Richard, by a white shop owner, Lyle Britten. James Baldwin uses this framework to examine how everyone contributes to the creation of a society in which one man can justify killing another because of a difference in skin color.