Blues for Mister Charlie (1964) with the James Baldwin Project
- Fri, Apr 17, 2026
This showtime has passed.
Fri, Apr 17 @ 5:00 pm: Filmmaker Visit and Premiere
Director: Joseph K. Chomyn Run Time: 105 min.
Starring: Al Freeman Jr., Diana Sands, Hilda Haynes, Pat Hingle, Percy Rodrigues
Country: United States
Language: English
Program:
“Baldwin on Broadway” A Wealth of Non-Fiction, Fiction and Verbal Fire
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- A live reading of “Notes for Blues,” Baldwin’s introductory essay to his 1964 play.
- Public premiere of the newly-restored & re-mastered adaptation of Blues for Mister Charlie (1964), featuring the original Broadway cast.
- A panel discussion with filmmaker Karen Thorsen, Blues scholars, intercut with archival onscreen commentary by James Baldwin, with writer Amiri Baraka and actor/director Frances Foster.
Admission is free. Seating is limited. Learn more about the James Baldwin Project here.
Program supported by the James Baldwin Project, The Ohio State University College of Arts and Sciences, OSU Office of Engagement, Colorlab, and Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture (NYPL)
About the film:
Dedicated to the memory of Medgar Evers and “the dead children of Birmingham,” James Baldwin’s ground-breaking play Blues for Mister Charlie was described by the New York Times as an exploration of a “moral crisis,” a drama with “fury in its belly, tears of anguish in its eyes and a roar of protest in its throat.”
In April, 1964, Blues opened on Broadway, but its producers were soon losing money—largely because Baldwin insisted on a minimal ticket price so that black people could see it. In June, 1964, hoping that publicity would boost the play’s box office, Baldwin edited his two-and-a-half-hour opus into a half-hour compilation of excerpts: filmed live with the original cast—with supportive commentary by the National Council of Churches—it was broadcast by the CBS series “Look Up & Live.” In August, 1964, despite contributions from high-profile patrons, the play closed.
For many years, a sealed 16mm print of that recorded performance lay untouched in the basement of Baldwin’s 17th-century French farmhouse: ideal conditions for pristine film storage.
In 1987, Baldwin died unexpectedly at age 63. For the last two years of his life, he had been collaborating with filmmaker Karen Thorsen on a cInéma vérité project; after his death, Baldwin’s brother David gave the long-forgotten Blues film print to Thorsen. In 1989, five brief excerpts of the play were included in Thorsen’s award-winning film portrait, JAMES BALDWIN: THE PRICE OF THE TICKET—and in 1998, the original film can and its contents became part of her Schomburg-based Baldwin Archive.
In 2026, with the support of Ohio State University, this abridged version of Baldwin’s original Broadway production—not seen in public since 1964—has now been restored & digitized.
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