Never Fight A Shark In Water
Never Fight A Shark In Water:
The Wrongful Conviction of Gregory Bright
NOCCA’s Nims Black Box Theatre
One-Man Stage Play Explores Wrongful Conviction
Performed by Gregory Bright
November 5 7:30 PM
November 6 7:30 PM
November 7 7:30 PM
NOCCA Black Box Theatre
$15; $5 students and seniors
Purchase tickets at the door or at www.fauxrealnola.com
Never Fight A Shark In Water: The Wrongful Conviction of Gregory Bright is an original dramatic production written by NOCCA Creative Writing Chair Lara Naughton. Never Fight a Shark in Water is based entirely on the words and recollections of Gregory Bright who spent 27 ½ years in prison for a crime he did not commit. The play, performed by Bright himself, tells the remarkable story of Bright’s wrongful conviction and exoneration, and explores the universal experiences of anger, forgiveness and compassion. It exposes the criminal justice system failures that lead to wrongful convictions and challenges us to rethink our understanding of freedom.
Performances will run November 5 – 7 at 7:30 PM in Nims Black Box Theatre on the NOCCA campus, 2800 Chartres Street, New Orleans. Q&A with Gregory Bright will follow each performance. The play is part of the Faux/Real Festival of Arts. Tickets may be purchased at the door or at www.fauxrealnola.com
Never Fight A Shark In Water
On Halloween weekend, 1975, a 15-year-old was killed in the Calliope Projects in New Orleans. Gregory Bright, 20 years old at the time, was arrested along with a co-defendant he had never met before, charged with 2nd degree murder, wrongfully convicted, and sentenced to life in Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola without the possibility of parole or suspension of sentence. Bright, who was illiterate when he entered prison, taught himself to read, then taught himself the law, getting his appeals all the way to the State Supreme Court before a lawyer from the Innocence Project New Orleans stepped in to help unravel the case. It took Gregory Bright 27 ½ years to prove his innocence and come home.