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Changing Same: The Cold-Blooded Murder of Booker T. Spicely

A New Play by Mike Wiley and Howard L. Craft, Performed by Mike Wiley
November 7-10 2024 at 7:30 pm

At The Black Box Theatre in Swain Hall at UNC-Chapel Hill

November 13-17 2024 at 7:30 pm

At Brody Theatre in Branson Hall at Duke University

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A fully produced performance of a new play focusing on the events leading up to and following the murder of Private Booker T. Spicely, following the 80th anniversary of his death.

On July 8th,1944, Private Booker T. Spicely was headed back home to Camp Butner after enjoying an evening in the Hayti neighborhood of Durham. He was unaware it would be his last. In the darkness of that night, he would become yet another victim of Jim Crow “justice.”

The play was commissioned by The Booker T. Spicely Committee, funded by Duke Energy and co-produced by StreetSigns Center for Literature and Performance, Mike Wiley Productions, and The Kenan Institute for Ethics’ America’s Hallowed Ground Project.

A Dynamic Duo

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Mike Wiley

Playwright and Performer for Changing Same...

Acclaimed actor and playwright Mike Wiley has spent the last decade fulfilling his mission to bring educational theatre based in in African-American history to young audiences and communities across the country. Through his performances, Wiley has introduced countless students and communities to the legacies of Emmett Till, Henry “Box” Brown, and more. Wiley holds a Masters of Fine Arts degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and currently serves as Artist in Residence for the Kenan Institute for Ethics and as the Stephen and Janet Bear Assistant Research Professor of Arts, Ethics, and Education in the Program in Education at Duke University.

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Howard L. Craft

Playwright for Changing Same..

Howard L. Craft is a father, husband, playwright, poet, essayist, and arts educator. He is the author of more than ten plays including Freight: The Five Incarnations of Abel Green, which was chosen as a New York Times Critic’s Pick during its March 2015 Off-Broadway run, and two books of poems, Across the Blue Chasm (Big Drum Press 2000) and Raising the Sky (Jacar Press 2016). Craft is currently the Piller Professor of the Practice at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

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