Mike Wiley: Blood Done Sign My Name

On Sunday, March 15, Mike Wiley will present his play “Blood Done Sign My Name” as part of St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church’s Faith & Arts series. This is his adaptation of Timothy Tyson’s book of the same name. In it he plays all the characters and brings to life the events surrounding the 1970 murder of one, Henry Morrow in Oxford, NC. His website describes the play as follows:

Marrow was a 23-year-old African–American U.S. Army veteran whose wife was pregnant with their third daughter. He was beaten and shot to death by three white men who were later acquitted of the crime by an all-white jury, despite testimony by two black eyewitnesses and one of the three accused confessing to shooting the gun. This hot-headed hate crime launched the small town of Oxford into a season of violent reprisals. Based on Tim Tyson’s award winning memoir, Wiley’s compelling dramatization of the true-life account of the racial murder in Blood Done Sign My Name feels frighteningly familiar and all too current.

Joining him for the production is the gifted singer Mary D. Williams who hovers around the stage offering her voice and spirit, underscoring and enhancing the message of the play.

Acclaimed actor and playwright Mike Wiley has spent the last decade fulfilling his mission to bring educational theatre to communities across the country. In the early days of his career, Wiley found few theatrical resources to shine a light on key events and figures in African-American history. To bring these stories to life, he started his own production company. Through his performances, Wiley has showcased the legacies of Emmett Till, Henry “Box” Brown and more. He has a Masters of Fine Arts from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and is the 2010 and 2014 Lehman Brady Visiting Joint Chair Professor in Documentary Studies and American Studies at Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In addition to his numerous school and community performances, he has also appeared on Discovery Channel, The Learning Channel and National Geographic Channel and has been featured in Our State magazine and on PBS’ North Carolina Now and WUNC’s The State of Things.

Tickets are $15 and are available from the church office.

The St. Matthew’s Faith and Arts Series began in 2010 as a result of the church’s desire to be more intentional in their support of the arts and artists; to challenge and deepen faith through exposure to the arts; and to use sacred space as a setting for artistic expression.