Written by Mike Wiley & Howard L. Craft
Performed by Mike Wiley
Co-presented by NC Stage and the YMI Cultural Center
HISTORIC | CIVIL RIGHTS | SOLO PIECE
*Please note: All performances will take place at the YMI Cultural Center at 39 S. Market St. Downtown Asheville*
On July 8, 1944, Private Booker T. Spicely boarded a bus in downtown Durham but never made it back to camp. The Black soldier, newly stationed at a nearby Army base and unfamiliar with the South’s Jim Crow laws, was shot twice in the chest by the bus driver after a dispute over his seat. The driver reboarded the bus and continued his route. An all-White jury later acquitted him in 28 minutes.
Award-winning playwright and performer Mike Wiley brings Spicely, the driver, and a chorus of witnesses back to life in this searing solo show — excavating a story that faded from public memory in a city known for its progressive views, visionary Black entrepreneurs, and institutes of higher learning.
Join Mike Wiley for a Q&A following each performance.
Mike Wiley holds a Masters of Fine Arts from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and was 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. Wiley received the University of North Carolina’s Distinguished Alumni Award in 2017.
In 2020, Mike Wiley received the Ann Atwater Award presented by Manbites Dog Theater Fund to recognize Triangle theater artists and companies whose body of work reflects and honors Durham activist Ann Atwater’s lifelong commitment to social justice. He is also recipient of the NC Theatre Conference Constance Welsh Award for Theatre for Youth. He has conducted numerous educational residencies funded through grant programs of the North Carolina Arts Council and his plays have been selected for spotlight showcases by arts industry conferences throughout North America.
In addition to his theatrical work, Wiley also serves as an Assistant Research Professor in the Program in the Kenan Institute for Ethics and the Program in Education at Duke University. He is the co-director of America’s Hallowed Ground – a project of the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University – which seeks to honor sites of past struggles that are significant to the American story, particularly its history of racial inequality. The work blends historical research with the Arts to amplify and keep alive the stories of these sites—many of which are not widely known.
About YMI Cultural Center
YMI Cultural Center is one of the oldest operating African American cultural centers in the United States. Built in1893, it is located downtown in the historic Black business district within the oldest Black neighborhood in Asheville, East End / Valley Street. Despite the changing landscape, YMI has maintained its reputation as the cultural and community focal point for Black Ashevillians and other visitors to this region.
After a two year renovation project, YMI opens its doors with a fully equipped ballroom, two new education centers, and a remodeled art gallery. YMI also welcomes a new visionary, Sean Hasker Palmer, as its new Executive Director.
YMI Cultural Center 2025 – 26 Curatorial Statement
The late Nikki Giovanni was a poet from Affrilachia who wrote a poem entitled, “Knoxville Tennessee,” about visiting her grandmother’s house and feeling the kind of warmth that made for loving relationships. She reminisces on the colocation of time, space, hospitality, familiarity and memory in this work. Thus, as we return home from the journey of renovation in every possible way, we ready ourselves to throw open our doors to welcome our many constituents into our spaces. We are excited to convene community, celebrate successes, educate, empower, and embrace wellness.
This year’s slate of programming seeks to consider what it means to embody a spirit of TERANGA, the Senegalese Wolof word for “good/radical hospitality.” For sure, we seek to be a place of radical hospitality, asking how can we serve our community better. At the same time, we raise questions about hospitality and tourism and how our Black histories are tethered to the legacies of those industries. We ask, “what can we learn from our unique past in the mountains, where snow and ice must be tempered by invitations of warmth and comfort?”
We invite our communities – local, regional, and national – to experience a renaissance in the hills, where we seek to gather as often as we can to be as warm as a visit to our “grandma’s” house, as enlightened as when we cook greens with our “aunties,” and with all the joy as when our uncles stop by to sit on the porch and make us laugh. We invite all who come home to the YMI Cultural center, to come on in… “and be warm.”
YMI Cultural Center is open Monday through Friday from 10 am – 5 pm. Saturdays by appointment.
Click here to go back to the full 2026-27 Season
