The Problem Of The Hero

March, 1941, the St. James Theatre in New York. On the eve of opening night, a difference of opinion over a single page of the script threatens an impasse between two literary giants of the 20th Century. As rehearsal continues around Richard Wright and Paul Green, led by the mercurial Orson Welles, the ensuing argument - delving into race, class, politics, and personal story - seems destined to dissolve the writers’ friendship.

Previously in 1940, controversial author Richard Wright turned to Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Paul Green to help adapt his best-selling book, Native Son, into a Broadway play. A friendship between the two developed - they debated and collaborated 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.