Page and Stage: James Baldwin’s Go Tell It on the Mountain

Gather in J. Pierpont Morgan’s historic Library for performance and discussion of James Baldwin’s semi-autobiographical novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain.

Actor Greig Sargeant will perform select readings from the novel as a point of departure for discussion led by Rhonda Evans, blending literary and performing arts in an intimate evening of entertainment, discussion, and community. Please note that this program is organized as a participatory conversation and attendees are encouraged to read the novel prior to the program.

Go Tell It on the Mountain, Baldwin’s first published novel, is a compelling story of a teenage boy’s coming of age that established Baldwin as one of the most celebrated writers of the twentieth century. The semi-autobiographical novel chronicles the struggles of fourteen-year-old John Grimes to assert his own identity while in the throes of moral, religious, and sexual turmoil that threatens to overcome him. While enmeshed in his greatest desires and his deepest fears, the prayers of John’s aunt, father, and mother untangle a decades-long history that spans from slavery to the Great Migration and reveals the role of the church as a source of both salvation and repression for generations of John’s family.

Greig Sargeant is an actor and associated artist of the Obie Award-winning Target Margin Theater and a company member of the internationally renowned Obie Award-winning theater ensemble Elevator Repair Service. Recent credits include: Baldwin and Buckley at Cambridge; Measure for Measure; and The Sound and the Fury (The Public Theater); Gatz (REDCAT); Fondly, Collette Richland; Bonnie’s Last Flight; and The Little Foxes (NYTW); The Parable Conference (BAM); Please Bury Me/Go Forth (Barysh¬nikov Arts Center); Uncle Vanya; Mamba’s Daughters; Strictly Dishonorable; Dido, Queen of Carthage; Cymbeline; and Measure for Measure (Target Margin Theater). Film: Help Me Mary (dir. Annie Tippe), The Bad Infinity (dir. Graham Sack). Sargeant has also been published in American Theatre magazine, having written an article regarding agency and race in the theater. Sargeant was a W.E.B Dubois Fellow at West Virginia University, where he received his MFA in acting.

This program takes place in J. Pierpont Morgan’s historic library. Doors to the library will open 30 minutes before the program begins. Attendees are invited to view tapes and transcripts of Baldwin’s interviews for The Paris Review in the exhibition Come Together: 3000 Years of Stories and Storytelling from 5:30 to 6 PM.

Go Tell It on the Mountain is available for purchase in the Morgan Shop.

Please e-mail public_programs@themorgan.org with questions about accessibility.