Original play ‘Black Blue & Invisible’ to cap Randolph Reads: Invisible Man

ASHEBORO – Stories of those who feel invisible in the community will inform Black Blue & Invisible, an original play created for Randolph Reads: Invisible Man by actor/playwright Mike Wiley. 

The show, sponsored by the City of Asheboro, will take the stage at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, September 27, and 3 p.m. Sunday, September 28, at the Sunset Theatre, 234 Sunset Avenue. The performance is free and the public is invited.

Black Blue & Invisible interweaves three elements: Chip Womick’s interviews for his series of articles in The Courier-Tribune on invisibility in the community; Wiley’s own personal narrative; and parts of another play, Sketches of a Man by Dr. Kashif Powell, which explores Ellison’s work.

Wiley says Black, Blue & Invisible proceeds from Ellison’s question, “Why am I so black and blue?” He calls the play a thoughtful investigation of what shared experiences evoke the feeling of invisibility.

“Black Blue & Invisible is a look back and a look ahead,” Wiley says. “Where have we come from as a society and how much further do we have to go to understand the multitude of cultures that walk beside us today?”

Wiley will be joined in the production by Powell, a post-doctoral performance studies student at Northwestern University; Aya “Hope” Shabu, a professional dancer, choreographer, teaching artist and arts administrator living in Durham; and Rasool Jahan, an actress with many stage, film and TV credits including Midsummer Night’s Dream, Cold Mountain, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Freedom Song and One Tree Hill.

Wiley holds a masters in fine arts from UNC-Chapel Hill. He has created several of one-man shows including The Parchman Hour, about the Freedom Riders, and A Game Apart, about Jackie Robinson.

In DAR HE, his play about Emmett Till, he performs more than 30 characters. A film version of the play garnered major film and acting awards at numerous festivals, including Best Actor at the Harlem International Film Festival.

All Randolph County has been invited to read and talk about Invisible Man by a partnership of community groups including The Courier-Tribune, the Friends of the Randolph Public Library, the Asheboro City Schools, the City of Asheboro, the George Washington Carver Community Enrichment Center, the Randolph County Public Library and the Randolph County Schools.

The purpose of the project is to allow people from all walks of life to have a common literary and artistic experience around the novel, and to be able to share their views on the themes and issues of being invisible in Randolph County.

For more information, visit www.randolphreads.org or contact Assistant Library Director George Taylor, 318-6814.