WhyNot Theatricals and EbzB productions, in association with AYJ Productions and Gravel Films. announce our new feature film, The Problem Of The Hero. 

The Problem Of The Hero is an official selection of the Santa Fe Film Festival and will debut there on February 17, 2023, @ 4 p.m. at the Jean Cocteau Cinema in  Santa Fe, New Mexico.

The film is based on EbzB Productions’ live stage performance of Native by Ian Finley.  

In 1940, controversial author Richard Wright turns to Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Paul Green to help adapt his best-selling book, Native Son, into a Broadway play. An unlikely friendship between the two develops. They debate and collaborate for several weeks over the summer in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, laboring night and day through extreme heat, to adapt the story of Bigger Thomas, a young black man who accidentally but brutally kills a white woman in her bedroom.

Now it is March 1941, and the author and playwright are in New York at the St. James Theatre on the eve of opening night. A difference of opinion over a single page of the script threatens an impasse. As rehearsal continues around them, led by the mercurial Orson Welles, the resulting argument – delving into race, class, politics, and personal story – seems destined to dissolve their friendship.

Pre-Production for The Problem Of The Hero began in June 2019 in Raleigh and Greensboro, North Carolina. Principal photography started in  December 2019 & January 2020 in Greensboro, NC at the Carolina Theater.  In February 2020 additional exteriors in Durham, NC, and other North Carolina locations took place as strict Covid19 procedures were observed to protect the cast and crew.*  Post Production took place from  September 2020 – November 2022, again with Covid19 interruptions delaying the original timeline of the project.

The Problem Of The Hero receives its festival premiere at the Santa Fe Film Festival in February 2023.  Distribution is anticipated in 2023 and beyond. The film is directed by Shaun Dozier, with Steve Milligan serving as Director of Photography.  Paul Green is played by David zum Brunnen.  J. Mardrice Henderson stars as Richard Wright.

Production of this film made possible courtesy

The Paul Green Foundation

Production of this film made possible courtesy

The Estate of Richard Wright