Collaboraction Theatre Company has extended Trial in the Delta: The Murder of Emmett Till due to popular demand.
Originally scheduled to close on March 1, the inaugural production at Chicago’s newest live theater space will now run an additional two weeks, through March 15.
Trial in the Delta: The Murder of Emmett Till is an urgent, unforgettable theatrical event that invites audiences to confront the truth, honor a legacy, and experience history as if it were happening today.
Darren Jones (from left) plays Mose Wright, NK Gutiérrez is Mamie Bradley, Donald Fitzdarryl plays Chester Miller and Mysun Aja Wade is Willie Reed in Collaboraction Theatre’s Trial in the Delta: The Murder of Emmett Till. Credit: Joel Maisonet
The Chicago Tribune gave Collaboraction’s immersive docudrama 3-½ stars, writing the experience “makes plain the injustice of that moment.”
The Chicago Reader went further, calling Trial in the Delta “a sharp reminder of how close the events of 70 years ago are to our own time.”
“The result is not merely a staging of history,” declared Buzz Center Stage, “but an ACT OF COMMUNAL WITNESSING, one that insists the past is not past."
Collaboraction’s extension of Trial in the Delta: The Murder of Emmett Till is presented in partnership with the Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley Institute, as part of the Till Life Matters Initiative.
Performances will now continue through March 15: Thursday at 7:30 p.m., Saturday at 3 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., and Sunday at 3 p.m. (Exception: No 7:30 p.m. show Saturday, March 7.) Run time is under two hours, including a short Crucial Conversation after every performance.
Note: Thursday, March 12 at 7:30 p.m. is BlackOut Night at Trial in the Delta. By intentionally curating a Black-majority audience, BlackOut Night is intended to be a supportive, safe, judgment-free space reserved for Black theatregoers to experience this new chapter in Emmett Till’s story.
Tickets, $25-$55, are now on sale at collaboraction.org. Twelve jury seats are available to audience members at every performance. Groups of 10 or more receive a 10% discount. Email boxoffice@collaboraction.org or call
(312) 226-9633 for more information.
Collaboraction’s new home in the Kimball Arts Center, 1757 N. Kimball Ave in Humboldt Park, is a sleek, 4,000-square foot space featuring a new 99-seat flexible studio theater and a 50-seat cabaret with cafe and bar. Free and nearby street parking is available. For CTA riders, the 82 Kimball-Homan bus stops right in front of the building. The theater is also a short walk from the Kimball stop on the 72 North and 73 Armitage bus lines. For bikers and pedestrians, the Kimball trailhead on The 606 leads directly to the Kimball Arts Center.
Mamie Bradley (NK Gutiérrez) with her son Emmett Till’s ring in Collaboration Theatre’s Trial in the Delta: The Murder of Emmett Till. Credit: Joel Maisonet
“As Collaboraction turns 30 and opens our new House of Belonging in Humboldt Park, we couldn't co-dream a more relevant first production than Trial in the Delta: The Murder of Emmett Till, bringing to life the trial that served as a catalyst of the start of the Civil Rights movement,” said Collaboraction Artistic Director Anthony Moseley. “When Mamie Till said that ‘everybody's business is my business,’ it’s as if she had a dream for a Beloved Community. We are honored to be a part of her legacy and manifesting our new space for arts, youth, social justice and community.”
Collaboraction’s award-winning live docudrama has returned in its most fully realized form yet, featuring a powerhouse ensemble of returning artists and new voices: NK Gutiérrez (Mamie Bradley), Darren Jones (Mose Wright), Mysun Aja Wade (Willie Reed), Donald Fitzdarryl (Chester Miller), Steve Silver (J.J. Breland), John Henry Roberts (Gerald Chatham), Richard Alan Baiker (Judge Curtis Swango), Mickey Dolan (Charlie Cox/clerk), Loren Lazerine (George Smith), Robert “Blue” Bellue (Peter Hackus), Tyler Burke (Roy Bryant), Matt Miles (J.W. Milam), Lauren Laverdiere (Mrs. Roy Bryant) and Jamie Vann (H.C. Strider).
Prosecutor Gerald Chatham (John Henry Roberts, center) holds a photo of Emmett Till as he asks Till’s murderers Roy Bryant (Tyler Burke, left ) and J.W. Milam (Matt Miles, right) if they recognize their victim, as Till’s mother Mamie Bradley (NK Gutiérrez) looks on, in Collaboraction's Trial in the Delta: The Murder of Emmett Till. Credit: Joel Maisonet
Emmett Till’s murders, J. W. Miliam and Roy Bryant, are played by Matt Miles (left) and Tyler Burke respectively in Collaboraction Theatre’s new production of Trial in the Delta: The Murder of Emmett Till. Credit: Joel Maisonet
Collaboraction’s creative and production team includes G. Riley Mills and Willie Round (co-adaptors), Anthony Moseley and Dana N. Anderson (co-directors), Emmy Weldon (set), Alexandria Richardson (costumes), Levi Wilkins (lights), Shawn Wallace (original music), Warren Levon (sound), Loretta Hawkins (creative consultant), Claire Simon (casting director), Zach Grasee, associate sound designer), Gina Montalvo (production manager), Alivia Arizaga (assistant costume designer), AJ Johnson and Enika Hale (wig stylists) and LaT’ya Johnson (stage manager). Understudies are Lena Janes, Jaiden Lindsey and Ernest G. Perry.
Trial in the Delta: The Murder of Emmett Till, co-adapted by (top, from left) G. Riley Mills and Willie Round, co-directed by Anthony Moseley and Dana N. Anderson, features (middle, from left) NK Gutiérrez (Mamie Bradley), Darren Jones (Mose Wright), Mysun Aja Wade (Willie Reed), Donald Fitzdarryl (Chester Miller), Steve Silver (J.J. Breland), John Henry Roberts (Gerald Chatham), Richard Alan Baiker (Judge Curtis Swango), (bottom row, from left) Mickey Dolan (Charlie Cox/clerk), Loren Lazerine (George Smith), Robert “Blue” Bellue (Peter Hackus), Tyler Burke (Roy Bryant), Matt Miles (J.W. Milam), Lauren Laverdiere (Mrs. Roy Bryant) and Jamie Vann (H.C. Strider).
Step inside the courtroom that changed America
On September 20, 1955, the trial of the men who murdered Emmett Till began—and the world would never be the same. In Trial in the Delta: The Murder of Emmett Till, Collaboraction transforms the original, long-buried trial transcript into a gripping, immersive theatrical experience that places audiences face-to-face with the people whose testimony shaped the civil rights movement.
Co-adapted by Willie Round and G. Riley Mills and co-directed by Anthony Moseley and Dana Anderson, Trial in the Delta unfolds like a live reenactment of the actual proceedings in Sumner, Mississippi. Actors seated among the audience rise to become witnesses for the prosecution and defense—including the trailblazing Mamie Till-Bradley, bringing raw, unfiltered history to life.
Born from a groundbreaking collaboration with NBC5 Chicago, Trial in the Delta won a National Emmy Award for Outstanding Documentary, two Chicago/Midwest Emmy Awards and a Silver Gavel Award from the American Bar Association. Collaboraction grew the teleplay into a full-length, immersive theatrical experience that had two short runs at the DuSable Black History Museum. The final live performance in February 2023 was professionally filmed and has been screened for groups including the The Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley Institute, the Chicago History Museum, the Chicago Chapter of the Federal Bar Association and the First Circuit Court of Philadelphia.
About Emmett Till
The murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till in 1955 brought national attention to the racial violence and injustice prevalent in the deep south. While on a trip from his hometown, Chicago, to visit relatives in Money, Mississippi, Till went to the Bryant store with his cousins, and may have whistled at Carolyn Bryant, a white woman. Her husband, Roy Bryant, and brother-in-law, J.W. Milam, kidnapped and brutally murdered Till, dumping his body in the Tallahatchie River.
A jury of 12 white men later decided that Milam and Bryant were not guilty of murdering Till, though there was plenty of evidence that they did and they later admitted they killed him in an interview in Look Magazine. The press coverage and murder trial galvanized a generation of young African Americans to join the Civil Rights Movement out of fear that such an incident could happen to friends, family, or even themselves.
The longstanding disappearance of the transcript of the State of Mississippi vs. Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, along with most of the courthouse documentation, is one of the great mysteries of a case that helped galvanize the civil rights movement and continues to garner worldwide attention a half-century later. Its absence would be more than a historical curiosity. It could also hamstring efforts to further prosecute the case. In 2005, a copy of the transcript surfaced and made its way to the F.B.I and led to reopening the case. Hopes, however, were dashed in December 2021, when the Department of Justice closed the case again without bringing justice.
Collaboraction’s path to its new House of Belonging
Collaboraction's new 99-seat theater, a House of Belonging. Credit: Ryan Brandoff
After departing its previous space of 10 years in Wicker Park’s Flat Iron Building at the start of the pandemic, Collaboraction leaders scouted more than two dozen spaces on Chicago’s south and west sides before breaking ground in Humboldt Park in March 2025
Today, in what used to be a pet store, Collaboraction boasts a sleek, 4,000-square foot space with a new 99-seat flexible studio theater plus a 50-seat cabaret with a cafe/bar. The company has begun activating both spaces with live theater, spoken word, music, dance, film, improv, workshops, community meetings and special events, produced by Collaboraction and with guest artists and companies. Collaboraction’s House of Belonging is also home to The Light, the company’s paid youth artist-activist program.
Collaboraction’s 99-seat performance space is a clean, hi-tech flexible studio with state-of-the-art light, sound and video equipment, including an HD multicam system ready to stream live and recorded content worldwide. The theater also serves as a digital studio for video projects and a learning space for youth interested in careers in production and tech. Collaboraction’s tech booth was intentionally designed to be ADA compliant, unlike most booths in Chicago theaters. Backstage, artists and staff have access to two brand new dressing rooms, bathrooms, storage, green room/office space and an exterior dock.
To manifest its new home, Collaboraction has launched a $3 million House of Belonging capital campaign. The campaign kicked off with a $200,000 grant from the City of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events. Other lead supporters include The Paul M. Angell Foundation, The Joseph and Bessie Feinberg Foundation, The LaChapelle Family Foundation, Kerry James Marshall and Cheryl Lynn Bruce, Cordogan, Clark & Associates, AV Chicago and ETC’s Light the Way Program. collaboraction.org/our-new-house-of-belonging.
Collaboraction's new cafe and lounge in the Kimball Arts Center. Credit: Ryan Brandoff
One of several seat configurations possible in Collaboraction's new House of Belonging. Credit Ryan Brandoff
About Collaboraction
Celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2026, Collaboraction is an award-winning Chicago theater company that uses immersive, socially conscious performance to spark change and build equity. Across all platforms, Collaboraction uses its KEDA methodology - Knowledge, Empathy, Dialogue, and Action - to spark changes in behavior and attitudes that manifest social change.
Collaboraction’s work includes NBC Chicago’s three-time Emmy Award-winning The Lost Story of Emmett Till: Trial in the Delta, the resulting live stage play film, Trial in the Delta: The Murder of Emmett Till, live productions of Crime Scene, Moonset Sunrise, A Blue Island In the Red Sea, its annual Peacebook and Sketchbook festivals, and its youth ensemble, The Light.
Collaboraction receives generous operating support and program funding from the Joseph and Bessie Feinberg Foundation, the Paul M. Angell Family Foundation, Marc and Jeanne Malnati Family, Gary Grube, the Lester and Hope Abelson Fund for the Performing Arts at the Chicago Community Foundation, Naperville Rotary Club, Field Foundation, Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, the Illinois Arts Council, a state agency.
Collaboraction is led by Darlene Jackson, Chief Executive Officer and Executive Director; Anthony Moseley, Chief Programming Officer and Artistic Director; and a dedicated board, company members and staff.
For more, visit collaboraction.org or follow Collaboraction on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok and Bluesky.
Kimball Arts Center, 1757 N. Kimball Ave, where Humboldt Park meets Logan Square
