Drama

In 1895, Antonio Sonoro is the latest in a long line of ruthless men. He’s good with his gun and drawn to trouble but he’s also out of money and out of options. A drought has ravaged the town of Dorado, Mexico, where he lives with his wife and children, and so when he hears about a train laden with gold and other treasures, he sets off for Houston to rob it—with his younger brother Hugo in tow. But when the heist goes awry and Hugo is killed by the Texas Rangers, Antonio finds himself launched into a quest for revenge that endangers not only his life and his family, but his eternal soul.In 1964, Jaime Sonoro is Mexico’s most renowned actor and singer. But his comfortable life is disrupted when he discovers a book that purports to tell the entire history of his family beginning with Cain and Abel. In its ancient pages, Jaime learns about the multitude of horrific crimes committed by his ancestors. And when the same mysterious figure from Antonio’s timeline shows up in Mexico City, Jaime realizes that he may be the one who has to pay for his ancestors’ crimes, unless he can discover the true story of his grandfather Antonio, the legendary bandido El Tragabalas, The Bullet Swallower.A family saga that’s epic in scope and loosely based on the author’s own great-grandfather, The Bullet Swallower is “rich in lyrical language, gripping action, and enchanting magical realism” (Esquire). It tackles border politics, intergenerational trauma, and the legacies of racism and colonialism in a lush setting with stunning prose that asks who pays for the sins of our ancestors and whether it is possible to be better than our forebearers. January 23, 2025

The time is 1927. The place is a rundown recording studio in Chicago. Ma Rainey, the legendary blues singer, is due to arrive with her entourage to cut new sides of old favorites. Waiting for her are her black musician sidemen, the white owner of the record company, and her white manager. What goes down in the session to come is more than music. It is a riveting portrayal of black rage ... of racism, of the self-hate that racism breeds, and of racial exploitation ... January 1, 1984 About the Author August Wilson was an American playwright. His literary legacy is the ten play series, The Pittsburgh Cycle, for which he received two Pulitzer Prizes for Drama. Each is set in a different decade, depicting the comic and tragic aspects of the African-American experience in the twentieth century.Wilson was born Frederick August Kittel, Jr. in the Hill District of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the fourth of six children to German immigrant baker, Frederick August Kittel, Sr. and Daisy Wilson, an African American cleaning woman, from North Carolina. Earlier, Wilson's maternal grandmother walked from North Carolina to Pennsylvania in search of a better life. His mother raised the children alone by the time he was five in a two-room apartment above a grocery store at 1727 Bedford Avenue.August Kittel changed his name to August Wilson to honor his mother after his father's death in 1965. In 1968, Wilson co-founded the Black Horizon Theater in the Hill District of Pittsburgh along with his friend Rob Penny. His first play, Recycling, was performed for audiences in small theaters and public housing community centers. Among these early efforts was Jitney ,which he revised more than two decades later as part of his 10-play cycle on 20th century Pittsburgh.In 1976 Vernell Lillie, founder of the Kuntu Repertory Theatre at the University of Pittsburgh two years earlier, directed Wilson's The Homecoming. Wilson also co-founded the Kuntu Writers Workshop to bring African-American writers together and to assist them in publication and production. Both organizations are still active.In 1978 Wilson moved to Saint Paul, Minnesota at the suggestion of his friend director Claude Purdy, who helped him secure a job writing educational scripts for the Science Museum of Minnesota. In 1980, he received a fellowship for The Playwrights' Center in Minneapolis. Wilson had a long association with the Penumbra Theatre Company of St Paul, which gave the premieres of some Wilson plays. Wilson received many honorary degrees, including an honorary Doctor of Humanities from the University of Pittsburgh, where he served as a member of the University's Board of Trustees from 1992 until 1995.Wilson's best known plays are Fences (1985) which won a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award), The Piano Lesson (1990) (a Pulitzer Prize and the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award), Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, and Joe Turner's Come and Gone.In 1994 Wilson left St Paul for Seattle, where he would develop a relationship with Seattle Repertory Theatre. Seattle Rep would ultimately be the only theater in the country to produce all of the works in his ten-play cycle and his one-man show How I Learned What I Learned.Wilson was married three times. His first marriage was to Brenda Burton from 1969 to 1972. They had one daughter, Sakina Ansari, born 1970. In 1981 he was married to Judy Oliver, a social worker, and divorced in 1990. Wilson's third marriage was in 1994 to costume designer, Constanza Romero, with whom he had his second daughter, Azula Carmen.In 2005, August Wilson received the Anisfield-Wolf Lifetime Achievement Award.Wilson reported that he had been diagnosed with liver cancer in June 2005 and been given three to five months to live. He passed away on October 2, 2005 at Swedish Medical Center in Seattle, and was interred at Greenwood Cemetery, Pittsburgh on October 8, 2005.

When Herald Loomis arrives at a black Pittsburgh boardinghouse after seven years' impressed labor on Joe Turner's chain gang, he is a free man-in body. But the scars of his enslavement and a sense of inescapable alienation oppress his spirit still, and the seemingly hospitable rooming house seethes with tension and distrust in the presence of this tormented stranger. Loomis is looking for the wife he left behind, believing that she can help him reclaim his old identity. But through his encounters with the other residents he begins to realize that what he really seeks is his rightful place in a new world - and it will take more then the skills of the local "People Finder" to discover it... January 1, 1988 About the Author August Wilson was an American playwright. His literary legacy is the ten play series, The Pittsburgh Cycle, for which he received two Pulitzer Prizes for Drama. Each is set in a different decade, depicting the comic and tragic aspects of the African-American experience in the twentieth century.Wilson was born Frederick August Kittel, Jr. in the Hill District of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the fourth of six children to German immigrant baker, Frederick August Kittel, Sr. and Daisy Wilson, an African American cleaning woman, from North Carolina. Earlier, Wilson's maternal grandmother walked from North Carolina to Pennsylvania in search of a better life. His mother raised the children alone by the time he was five in a two-room apartment above a grocery store at 1727 Bedford Avenue.August Kittel changed his name to August Wilson to honor his mother after his father's death in 1965. In 1968, Wilson co-founded the Black Horizon Theater in the Hill District of Pittsburgh along with his friend Rob Penny. His first play, Recycling, was performed for audiences in small theaters and public housing community centers. Among these early efforts was Jitney ,which he revised more than two decades later as part of his 10-play cycle on 20th century Pittsburgh.In 1976 Vernell Lillie, founder of the Kuntu Repertory Theatre at the University of Pittsburgh two years earlier, directed Wilson's The Homecoming. Wilson also co-founded the Kuntu Writers Workshop to bring African-American writers together and to assist them in publication and production. Both organizations are still active. In 1978 Wilson moved to Saint Paul, Minnesota at the suggestion of his friend director Claude Purdy, who helped him secure a job writing educational scripts for the Science Museum of Minnesota. In 1980, he received a fellowship for The Playwrights' Center in Minneapolis. Wilson had a long association with the Penumbra Theatre Company of St Paul, which gave the premieres of some Wilson plays.Wilson received many honorary degrees, including an honorary Doctor of Humanities from the University of Pittsburgh, where he served as a member of the University's Board of Trustees from 1992 until 1995.Wilson's best known plays are Fences (1985) which won a Pulitzer Prize and a Tony Award), The Piano Lesson (1990) (a Pulitzer Prize and the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award), Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, and Joe Turner's Come and Gone.In 1994 Wilson left St Paul for Seattle, where he would develop a relationship with Seattle Repertory Theatre. Seattle Rep would ultimately be the only theater in the country to produce all of the works in his ten-play cycle and his one-man show How I Learned What I Learned.Wilson was married three times. His first marriage was to Brenda Burton from 1969 to 1972. They had one daughter, Sakina Ansari, born 1970. In 1981 he was married to Judy Oliver, a social worker, and divorced in 1990. Wilson's third marriage was in 1994 to costume designer, Constanza Romero, with whom he had his second daughter, Azula Carmen.In 2005, August Wilson received the Anisfield-Wolf Lifetime Achievement Award.Wilson reported that he had been diagnosed with liver cancer in June 2005 and been given three to five months to live. He passed away on October 2, 2005 at Swedish Medical Center in Seattle, and was interred at Greenwood Cemetery, Pittsburgh on October 8, 2005.

Rice Moore is just beginning to think his troubles are behind him. He’s found a job protecting a remote forest preserve in Virginian Appalachia where his main responsibilities include tracking wildlife and refurbishing cabins. It’s hard work, and totally solitary—perfect to hide away from the Mexican drug cartels he betrayed back in Arizona. But when Rice finds the carcass of a bear killed on the grounds, the quiet solitude he’s so desperately sought is suddenly at risk.More bears are killed on the preserve and Rice’s obsession with catching the poachers escalates, leading to hostile altercations with the locals and attention from both the law and Rice’s employers. Partnering with his predecessor, a scientist who hopes to continue her research on the preserve, Rice puts into motion a plan that could expose the poachers but risks revealing his own whereabouts to the dangerous people he was running from in the first place.James McLaughlin expertly brings the beauty and danger of Appalachia to life. The result is an elemental, slow burn of a novel—one that will haunt you long after you turn the final page. June 12, 2018

The first authoritative biography of August Wilson, the most important and successful American playwright of the late 20th century, by a theater critic who knew him.August Wilson wrote a series of ten plays celebrating African American life in the 20th century, one play for each decade. No other American playwright has completed such an ambitious oeuvre. Two of the plays became successful films, Fences , starring Denzel Washington and Viola Davis; and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom , starring Viola Davis and Chadwick Boseman. Fences and The Piano Lesson won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama; Fences won the Tony Award for Best Play, and years after Wilson’s death in 2005, Jitney earned a Tony Award for Best Revival of a Play.Through his brilliant use of vernacular speech, Wilson developed unforgettable characters who epitomized the trials and triumphs of the African American experience. He said that he didn’t research his plays but wrote from “the blood’s memory,” a sense of racial history that he believed African Americans shared. Author and theater critic Patti Hartigan traced his ancestry back to slavery, and his plays echo with uncanny similarities to the history of his ancestors. She interviewed Wilson many times before his death and traces his life from his childhood in Pittsburgh (where nine of the plays take place) to Broadway. She also interviewed scores of friends, theater colleagues and family members, and conducted extensive research to tell the story of a writer who left an indelible imprint on American theater and opened the door for future playwrights of color. August 15, 2023

January 1, 1997 About the Author Suzan-Lori Parks is an award-winning American playwright and screenwriter. She was a recipient of the MacArthur Foundation "Genius" Grant in 2001, and received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 2002. She is married to blues musician Paul Oscher.

Konstantin Duhovny is a haunted man. His father died when he was ten, and ghosts have been hovering around Kostya ever since. Kostya can’t exactly see the ghosts, but he can taste their favorite foods. Flavors of meals he’s never eaten will flood his mouth, a sign that a spirit is present. Kostya has kept these aftertastes a secret for most of his life, but one night, he decides to act on what he’s tasting. And everything changes.Kostya discovers that he can reunite people with their deceased loved ones—at least for the length of time it takes for them to eat a dish that he’s prepared. He thinks his life’s purpose might be to offer closure to grieving strangers, and sets out to learn all he can by entering a particularly fiery ring of Hell: the New York culinary scene. But as his kitchen skills catch up with his ambitions, Kostya is too blind to see the catastrophe looming in the Afterlife. And the one person who knows Kostya must be stopped also happens to be falling in love with him.Set in the bustling world of New York restaurants and teeming with mouthwatering food writing, Aftertaste is a whirlwind romance, a heart-wrenching look at love and loss, and a ghost story about all the ways we hunger—and how far we’d go to find satisfaction.Lavelle’s debut is a multi-course tasting menu of a book that will sate, delight, excite, comfort, and inspire even the pickiest of readers. May 20, 2025

Presented with the right plays, children are the most honest and appreciative of audiences. This anthology, compiled by an authority on children's theatre, collects new and overlooked scripts that represent the best of modern playwriting for children. From works adapted from classic children's stories to original contemporary scripts, each play inspires the imagination as it entertains.With complete scripts for twenty plays plus a biographical sketch of each playwright, Theatre for Young Audiences is invaluable for anyone involved in children's theatre, from community theatre groups to teachers and students of dramatic literature. April 15, 1998

Celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Pulitzer Prize-winning masterpiece The Color Purple --as well as the acclaimed 1985 film from Steven Spielberg, the Tony-winning Broadway musical, and the all-new film adaptation with this gorgeously designed exploration of the novel's enduring legacy, featuring contributions from Alice Walker, Oprah Winfrey, Steven Spielberg, Colman Domingo, Fantasia Barrino, Danny Glover, and more. Since its publication in 1982, The Color Purple has resonated with generations of readers across the globe. The novel catapulted author Alice Walker to international fame, brought Oprah Winfrey and Whoopi Goldberg acting acclaim in the 1985 film adaptation, and inspired theatrical productions around the world, including the Tony Award-winning Broadway musical. This cultural touchstone--which so profoundly touches on race, family, survival, spirituality, sisterhood, and love in all forms--continues to beget new iterations, most recently a feature film. Now, an in-depth exploration celebrates The Color Purple 's ever-expanding legacy as never Purple Rising features oral histories and fresh anecdotes based on more than fifty original interviews, as well as vibrant, never-before-seen images. It reveals the crucial real-life experiences that inspired the novel, and the transcendent humanity of its themes that continue to connect with audiences, each new adaptation speaking to the changing times and cultural contexts. Creators, actors, producers, activists, cultural critics, and well-known fans comment on the power of Walker's story and how it has affected their lives and artistic choices, including Whoopi Goldberg, Taraji P. Henson, Danielle Brooks, Halle Bailey, Blitz Bazawule, Jon Batiste, H.E.R., Salamishah Tillet, Ricky Dillard, Gabrielle Union, and many more. An insightful and vivid celebration of an enduring classic, Purple Rising is the ultimate gift for fans of all ages and a true celebration of Black joy, storytelling, and achievement. November 7, 2023 About the Author I'm a writer based in Philadelphia. I've written for many national magazines and newspapers, and my latest book is called "Pig Candy: Taking My Father South, Taking My Father Home." It's a memoir/social history about race, filial duty, mortality, and barbecue."

After the world was ravaged by the fires of World War 3, humanity rebuilt itself into anew image. As the world came out of that turmoil, some of the survivors had beentransformed, becoming humans with new varied supernatural abilities. Some could readminds, while others could control the very fires that had destroyed the old world, andhelped create the new one. Beyond that were those gifted with precognition, remoteviewing, and even the ability to warp the fabric of reality itself. These truly giftedindividuals forever shifted the face of humanity, leading to the formation of a newfederation settled around the Mediterranean Sea, known as Gaia.Enter the stage Miss Alette Bellerose, heiress to a wealthy family with the ability tomanipulate energy and matter, a powerful trait that makes her an attractive target for bothfor love.. and more nefarious motives. Miss Bellerose has just turned 18 years oldand graduated from formal schooling when her life changed beyond all recognition dueto a sudden engagement arranged by her father to a childhood acquaintance. NowAlette must navigate not only her feelings about this arrangement but those of thepeople she will be living with for the foreseeable future- especially her handsome newfiancé Nico Katsaros.However, romance will be only one part of the intricate web that surrounds ourprotagonist, for all is not well in the land of Gaia. Dark forces working in the shadowsacross Southern Europe are usurping the will of nations and turning the people's rulersagainst the peace that has been fought for and won at great cost. A decree from thehighest office sends Miss Bellerose on her own personal Odyssey, where she, the newfriends and loved ones she has found, and a few others will be tasked with a dauntingassignment to stop this new threat before it destroys everything they hold dear.Alette will face dangers and loss beyond anything she ever dreamed of, and the stakesfor her couldn't be higher. Only with the help of her fiancé, friends, and family, will MissBellerose weather the storm and protect the world she calls home. April 4, 2022

Sheila Heti, author of the acclaimed How a Person Should Be? and coeditor of the best-selling anthology Women in Clothes, along with the students of 826 Valencia writing lab will edit this year’s anthology. Their compilation includes new fiction, nonfiction, poetry, comics, and the category-defying gems that have become one of the hallmarks of this lively collection. October 2, 2019 About the Author Sheila Heti is the author of ten books, including the novels Motherhood and How Should a Person Be? Her upcoming novel, Pure Colour, will be published on February 15, 2022.Her second children’s book, A Garden of Creatures, illustrated by Esme Shapiro, will be published in May 2022.She was named one of "The New Vanguard" by The New York Times; a list of fifteen writers from around the world who are "shaping the way we read and write fiction in the 21st century." Her books have been translated into twenty-three languages.

In the aftermath of Brexit, the body of a young woman is found by the river Thames, and a neighbor, a retired teacher from Chapleton College, is arrested. An eccentric loner—intellectual, shy, a fastidious dresser with expensive tastes—he is the perfect candidate for a media monstering.In custody he is interviewed by two detectives: the circumspect Ander, and his workaday foil, Gary. Ander is particularly watchful now, because the man across the table is someone he knows—someone he hasn’t seen in nearly thirty years. Determined to salvage the truth as ex-pupils and colleagues line up against the accused, he must face a story from decades back, from his own time as a Chapleton student, at the peak of anti-Irish sentiment.With the momentum of classic crime fiction, Throw Me to the Wolves follows two mysteries—one unfolding in the media-saturated present, and the other bubbling up from the abusive past of the 1980s English school system. Beautifully written and psychologically acute, it is a novel about memory and childhood, prescient and piercingly funny, as wise as it is tragic. April 4, 2019 About the Author Born in Tunisia in 1968 to a Belgian French-speaking mother and an English father of Irish descent, he grew up in Belgium and also lived for periods in Venezuela, Iran, Romania and the UK. He currently lives in Oxford and in Wales teaching French and Comparative Literature at St Anne's College, Oxford.

How else can you defend yourself against losing your hi-fi equipment, your tv set and computer, your watch and rings a house gun, like a house cat; that is a fact of ordinary life in many cities of the world as we come to the end of the twentieth century, especially in south africa at this time the successful, respected executive director of an insurance company, harold, and his doctor wife, claudia, for whom violence could never be a means of solving personal conflict, are faced with something that could never happen to their son has committed murder what kind of loyalty do a mother and a father owe a son who has committed this unimaginable horror what have they done, in influencing his character; more ominously, where is it they have failed him the house gun is a passionate narrative of love being particularly complex between parents and their children it moves with the restless pace of living itself, from the intimate to the general condition; if it is a parable of present violence, it is also an affirmation of the will to human reconciliation that starts where it must, between individuals. January 1, 1997 About the Author Nadine Gordimer was a South African writer, political activist, and recipient of the 1991 Nobel Prize in Literature. She was recognized as a woman "who through her magnificent epic writing has – in the words of Alfred Nobel – been of very great benefit to humanity".Gordimer's writing dealt with moral and racial issues, particularly apartheid in South Africa. Under that regime, works such as Burger's Daughter and July's People were banned. She was active in the anti-apartheid movement, joining the African National Congress during the days when the organization was banned. She was also active in HIV/AIDS causes.

Somewhere in South America, at the home of the country's vice president, a lavish birthday party is being held in honor of the powerful businessman Mr. Hosokawa. Roxane Coss, opera's most revered soprano, has mesmerized the international guests with her singing. It is a perfect evening—until a band of gun-wielding terrorists takes the entire party hostage. But what begins as a panicked, life-threatening scenario slowly evolves into something quite different, a moment of great beauty, as terrorists and hostages forge unexpected bonds and people from different continents become compatriots, intimate friends, and lovers. May 22, 2001 About the Author Patchett was born in Los Angeles, California. Her mother is the novelist Jeanne Ray.She moved to Nashville, Tennessee when she was six, where she continues to live. Patchett said she loves her home in Nashville with her doctor husband and dog. If asked if she could go any place, that place would always be home. "Home is ...the stable window that opens out into the imagination."Patchett attended high school at St. Bernard Academy, a private, non-parochial Catholic school for girls run by the Sisters of Mercy. Following graduation, she attended Sarah Lawrence College and took fiction writing classes with Allan Gurganus, Russell Banks, and Grace Paley. She later attended the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, Massachusetts, where she met longtime friend Elizabeth McCracken. It was also there that she wrote her first novel, The Patron Saint of Liars.In 2010, when she found that her hometown of Nashville no longer had a good book store, she co-founded Parnassus Books with Karen Hayes; the store opened in November 2011. In 2012, Patchett was on the Time 100 list of most influential people in the world by TIME magazine.

Liv Reese wakes up in the back of a taxi with no idea where she is or how she got there. When she’s dropped off at the door of her brownstone, a stranger answers―a stranger who now lives in her apartment and forces her out in the cold. She reaches for her phone to call for help, only to discover it’s missing, and in its place is a bloodstained knife. That’s when she sees that her hands are covered in black pen, scribbled messages like graffiti on her skin: STAY AWAKE.Two years ago, Liv was living with her best friend, dating a new man, and thriving as a successful writer for a trendy magazine. Now, she’s lost and disoriented in a New York City that looks nothing like what she remembers. Catching a glimpse of the local news, she’s horrified to see reports of a crime scene where the victim’s blood has been used to scrawl a message across a window, the same message that’s inked on her hands. What did she do last night? And why does she remember nothing from the past two years? Liv finds herself on the run for a crime she doesn’t remember committing as she tries to piece together the fragments of her life. But there’s someone who does know exactly what she did, and they’ll do anything to make her forget―permanently.In the vein of SJ Watson’s Before I Go to Sleep and Christopher Nolan’s cult classic Memento, Megan Goldin’s Stay Awake is an electrifying novel that plays with memory and murder.

In the town of Night Vale, there’s a faceless old woman who secretly lives in everyone’s home, but no one knows how she got there or where she came from...until now. Told in a series of eerie flashbacks, the story of The Faceless Old Woman goes back centuries to reveal an initially blissful and then tragic childhood on a Mediterranean Estate in the early nineteenth century, her rise in the criminal underworld of Europe, a nautical adventure with a mysterious organization of smugglers, her plot for revenge on the ones who betrayed her, and ultimately her death and its aftermath, as her spirit travels the world for decades until settling in modern-day Night Vale.Interspersed throughout is a present-day story in Night Vale, as The Faceless Old Woman guides, haunts, and sabotages a man named Craig. In the end, her current day dealings with Craig and her swashbuckling history in nineteenth century Europe will come together in the most unexpected and horrifying way.

Melatu Uche Okorie tells stories of migrant women in a hidden Ireland. From a day in the life of women queuing for basic supplies in an Irish direct provision hostel to a young black woman's depiction of everyday racism in Ireland, her nuanced writing shines a light on the injustice of the direct provision system and on the insidious racism experienced by migrant women living in Ireland. A third story, set in a Nigeria of the past, tells of a woman's life destroyed by an ancient superstition and her fierce determination to carry on, a quality Okorie believes is universally shared by women. May 19, 2018

Bad Jews tells the story of Daphna Feygenbaum, a “Real Jew†? with an Israeli boyfriend. When Daphna’s cousin Liam brings home his shiksa girlfriend Melody and declares ownership of their grandfather’s Chai necklace, a vicious and hilarious brawl over family, faith and legacy ensues. January 1, 2014 About the Author Joshua Harmon's play Bad Jews received its world premiere at Roundabout Underground and was the first production to transfer to the Roundabout's Laura Pels Theatre (Outer Critics Circle and Lucille Lortel Award nominations, Best Play). It has since become the third most-produced play in the United States this season and transferred to London’s West End after sell-out runs at Theatre Royal Bath and the St. James Theatre. His newest play Significant Other opened at Roundabout this summer. His work has been produced and developed by Manhattan Theatre Club, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Hangar Theatre, Ars Nova, and Actor's Express, where he was the 2010-2011 National New Play Network Playwright-in-Residence. He has received fellowships from MacDowell, Atlantic Center for the Arts, SPACE at Ryder Farm, and the Eudora Welty Foundation. Joshua is a recent graduate of Juilliard and at work on commissions for Roundabout Theatre Company and Lincoln Center Theater.

When morning-after gossip about privileged Davis and ambitious Leigh turns ugly, self-interest collides with the truth and the resulting storm of ambiguity makes it hard to discern just who’s a victim, who’s a predator, and who’s a Future Leader of America. All that’s certain is when the veneer of loyalty and friendship is stripped back, what’s revealed is a vicious jungle of sexual politics, raw ambition, and class warfare where only the strong could possibly survive. January 1, 2014

Centered squarely on the Negro-white conflict, both Dutchman and The Slave are literally shocking plays--in ideas, in language, in honest anger. They illuminate as with a flash of lightning a deadly serious problem--and they bring an eloquent and exceptionally powerful voice to the American theatre.Dutchman opened in New York City on March 24, 1964, to perhaps the most excited acclaim ever accorded an off-Broadway production and shortly thereafter received the Village Voice's Obie Award. The Slave, which was produced off-Broadway the following fall, continues to be the subject of heated critical controversy. January 1, 1964 About the Author Baraka was born Everett LeRoy Jones in Newark, New Jersey, where he attended Barringer High School. His father, Coyt Leverette Jones, worked as a postal supervisor and lift operator. His mother, Anna Lois (née Russ), was a social worker. In 1967 he adopted the African name Imamu Amear Baraka, which he later changed to Amiri Baraka.The Universities where he studied were Rutgers, Columbia, and Howard Universities, leaving without a degree, and the New School for Social Research. He won a scholarship to Rutgers University in 1951, but a continuing sense of cultural dislocation prompted him to transfer in 1952 to Howard University. His major fields of study were philosophy and religion. Baraka also served three years in the U.S. Air Force as a gunner. Baraka continued his studies of comparative literature at Columbia University. After an anonymous letter to his commanding officer accusing him of being a communist led to the discovery of Soviet writings, Baraka was put on gardening duty and given a dishonorable discharge for violation of his oath of duty.The same year, he moved to Greenwich Village working initially in a warehouse for music records. His interest in jazz began in this period. At the same time he came into contact with Beat, Black Mountain College and New York School poets. In 1958 he married Hettie Cohen and founded Totem Press, which published such Beat Generation icons as Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. Baraka visited Cuba in July 1960 with a Fair Play for Cuba Committee delegation and reported his impressions in his essay Cuba libre. He had begun to be a politically active artist. In 1961 a first book of poems, Preface to a Twenty Volume Suicide Note, was published, followed in 1963 by Blues People: Negro Music in White America—to this day one of the most influential volumes of jazz criticism, especially in regard to the then beginning Free Jazz movement. His acclaimed controversial play Dutchman premiered in 1964 and received an Obie Award the same year.After the assassination of Malcolm X (1965), Baraka left his wife and their two children and moved to Harlem. His revolutionary and now antisemitic poetry became controversial.In 1966, Baraka married his second wife, Sylvia Robinson, who later adopted the name Amina Baraka. In 1967 he lectured at San Francisco State University In 1968, he was arrested in Newark for allegedly carrying an illegal weapon and resisting arrest during the 1967 Newark riots, and was subsequently sentenced to three years in prison; shortly afterward an appeals court reversed the sentence based on his defense by attorney, Raymond A. Brown. That same year his second book of jazz criticism, Black Music, came out, a collection of previously published music journalism, including the seminal Apple Cores columns from Down Beat magazine. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Baraka courted controversy by penning some strongly anti-Jewish poems and articles, similar to the stance at that time of the Nation of Islam.Around 1974, Baraka distanced himself from Black nationalism and became a Marxist and a supporter of third-world liberation movements. In 1979 he became a lecturer SUNY-Stony Brook's Africana Studies Department. In 1980 he denounced his former anti-semitic utterances, declaring himself an anti-zionist.In 1984 Baraka became a full professor at Rutgers University, but was subsequently denied tenure.In 1989 he won an American Book Award for his works as well as a Langston Hughes Award. In 1990 he co-authored the autobiography of Quincy Jones, and 1998 was a supporting actor in Warren Beatty's film Bulworth. In 1996, Baraka contributed to the AIDS benefit album Offbeat: A Red Hot Soundtrip produced by the Red Hot Organization.In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed Amiri Baraka on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.

In celebration of its highly anticipated Broadway revival, Ntozake Shange’s classic, award-winning play centering the wide-ranging experiences of Black women, now with introductions by two-time National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward and Broadway director Camille A. Brown.From its inception in California in 1974 to its Broadway revival in 2022, the Obie Award–winning for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf has excited, inspired, and transformed audiences all over the country for nearly fifty years. Passionate and fearless, Shange’s words reveal what it meant to be a woman of color in the 20th century. First published in 1975, when it was praised by The New Yorker for “encompassing…every feeling and experience a woman has ever had,” for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf will be read and performed for generations to come. Now with new introductions by Jesmyn Ward and Broadway director Camille A. Brown, and one poem not included in the original, here is the complete text of a groundbreaking dramatic prose poem that resonates with unusual beauty in its fierce message to the world. January 1, 1975 About the Author Ntozake Shange (pronounced En-toe-ZAHK-kay SHONG-gay) was an African-American playwright, performance artist, and writer who is best known for her Obie Award winning play for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf.Among her honors and awards are fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund, and a Pushcart Prize.