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Jan 21 – Jan 31, 2016
- Main Stage Theatre
- Sold out. Tickets for this event are no longer available.
A collaboration with the Association to Preserve the Eatonville Community, presenter of the ZORA! Festival 2016 program Treasured local author Zora Neale Hurston (Their Eyes Were Watching God) weaves together song and story in a dramatic retelling of her award-winning short story of the same name.
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Jan 21 – Jan 31, 2016
- Main Stage Theatre
- Sold out. Tickets for this event are no longer available.
A Note from the Director/Playwright
Young African American writers of the Harlem Renaissance used to get together on a regular basis to support each other’s work, to socialize, and to stimulate creativity. In 1926, under the leadership of Wallace Thurman and Langston Hughes they came together to create Fire!! The magazine was conceived to express the African American experience during the Harlem Renaissance in a modern and realistic fashion.
The magazine’s founders wanted to express the changing attitudes of younger African Americans. In Fire!! they explored edgy issues in their community such as homosexuality, interracial relationships, adultery, African religious rituals, and female sexuality. All these were topics that were typically off limits for the older generation of African American writers like W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington—two of the most influential voices of African American rhetoric of the time. This magazine acknowledged that there was a generation gap for the writers of the Harlem Renaissance.
As a playwright, I wanted to celebrate the magnificent storytelling of Zora Neale Hurston. I also wanted to honor other major influences of the movement who were in Zora’s company, many of whom were her friends: Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, Wallace Thurman, Helene Johnson, Gwendolyn Bennett, and Richard Nugent. These voices shaped my experience as an African American artist and gave me the courage to explore my heritage from all perspectives.
The script presents a fictitious meeting between these writers to decide which of their works should go into the magazine. It exposes the generation gap, as well as the dissension between the younger writers. As a spirited discussion ensues, Zora’s storytelling of Spunk becomes the highlight of the evening and the way to put the group on the same page. Zora’s ability to tell a story made her the main attraction of any social engagement and a sensation in the literary world.
It is my hope that after seeing this play, you will continue to enjoy and experience these artists. The Harlem Renaissance exposed America to the real African American culture and we are forever grateful to Zora and her contemporaries for their courage and creativity, but most of all, for their commitment to tell it like it was and, unfortunately, in the bleakest situations, still is.
—Be Boyd, Director/Playwright