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Ntozake Shange

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Ntozake Shange, 1978

Ntozake Shange. Photo from Barnard College Archives. Licensed under Creative Commons, courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

Ntozake Shange
Born Paulette L. Williams
October 18, 1948 (1948-10-18) (age 77)
Trenton, New Jersey
Residence Brooklyn
Nationality United States American
Alma mater Barnard College
University of Southern California
Occupation Playwright, Author
Known for For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf
Home town Trenton, New Jersey
Parents Paul T. Williams, Eloise Williams

Ntozake Shange (born October 18, 1948) is an African-American poet and playwright.[1] As a self proclaimed black feminist, much of the content of her work addresses issues relating to race and feminism.

Life[]

Youth[]

Shange was born Paulette L. Williams[2] in Trenton, New Jersey[3] to an upper-middle-class family. Her father, Paul T. Williams, was an Air Force surgeon, and her mother, Eloise Williams, an educator and a psychiatric social worker. When she was 8, Shange's family moved to the racially segregated city of St. Louis, Missouri. As a result of the Brown v. Board of Education court decision, Shange was bussed to a white school where she endured racism and racist attacks.

Shange's family had a strong interest in the arts and encouraged her artistic education. Among the guests at their home were Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, Chuck Berry, and W.E.B. Du Bois.

When Shange was 13, she returned to New Jersey, where she graduated fron Trenton Central High School.[4] In 1966 Shange enrolled at Barnard College. She graduated cum laude in American Studies, then earned a master's degree in the same field from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. However, Shange's college years were not all pleasant. She married during her first year in college, but the marriage did not last long. Depressed over her separation and with a strong sense of bitterness and alienation, Shange attempted suicide.[5]

In 1971, having come to terms with her depression and alienation, Shange changed her name. Ntozakhe means she who has her own things (literally things that belong to her in Xhosa) and shange means he/she who walks/lives with lions (meaning the lion's Pride in Zulu).[3]

Career[]

In 1975, Shange moved to New York City, where in that year her earliest and most well-known play was produced — For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf. Originally produced off-Broadway, the play soon moved on to Broadway at the Booth Theater. This play, her most famous work, was a 20-part poem that chronicled the lives of Black women in the United States. The poem was eventually made into a stage play, and was then published in book form in 1977. Since then, Shange has written a number of successful plays, including an adaptation of Bertolt Brecht's Mother Courage and Her Children (1980).

In 2003, Shange wrote and oversaw the production of Lavender Lizards and Lilac Landmines: Layla's Dream while serving as a visiting artist at the University of Florida, Gainesville.

Individual poems, essays, and short stories of hers have appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, including The Black Scholar, Yardbird, MS, Essence Magazine, The Chicago Tribune, VIBE, and Third-World Women.[6]

She also wrote Betsey Brown, a novel about an African American girl who runs away from home.

Shange lives in Brooklyn, New York.[7]

Recognition[]

Her debut play, For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf, won a number of awards, including the Obie Award, Outer Critics Circle Award, and the AUDELCO Award. She also won an Obie for her adaptation of Brecht's Mother Courage and Her children.

Among her honors and awards are fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund, and a Pushcart Prize.

Awards[]

  • NDEA fellow, 1973
  • Obie Award
  • Outer Critics Circle Award
  • Audience Development Committee (Audelco) Award
  • Mademoiselle Award
  • Frank Silvera Writers' Workshop Award, 1978
  • Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Poetry, 1981 (for Three Pieces)
  • Guggenheim fellowship, 1981
  • Medal of Excellence, Columbia University, 1981
  • Obie Award, 1981, for Mother Courage and Her Children
  • Nori Eboraci Award
  • Barnard College, 1988
  • Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund annual writer's award, 1992
  • Paul Robeson Achievement Award, 1992
  • Arts and Cultural Achievement Award
  • National Coalition of 100 Black Women (Pennsylvania chapter), 1992
  • Taos World Poetry Heavyweight Champion, 1992, 1993, 1994
  • Living Legend Award, National Black Theatre Festival, 1993
  • Claim Your Life Award
  • WDAS-AM/FM, 1993
  • Monarch Merit Award
  • National Council for Culture and Art
  • Pushcart Prize[8]

Nominations[]

For_Colored_Girls_Excerpt_"One"_by_Ntozake_Shange

For Colored Girls Excerpt "One" by Ntozake Shange

  • Tony
  • Grammy
  • Emmy award nominations (all 1977, all for For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf)

In popular culture[]

For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf.was made into the 2010 movie, For Colored Girls, directed by Tyler Perry.

Publications[]

Poetry[]

  • Melissa and Smith. St. Paul, MN: Bookslinger, 1976.
  • Natural Disasters, and other festive occasions (prose and poems). San Francisco: Heirs International, 1977.
  • Nappy Edges. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1978.
  • Some Men. 1981.
  • A Daughter's Geography. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1983.
  • From Okra to Greens. Minneapolis, MN: Coffee House Press, 1984.
  • Ridin' the Moon in Texas: Word paintings (responses to art in prose and poetry). New York: St. Martin's Press, 1987.
  • The Love Space Demands: A continuing saga. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1991.
  • Three Pieces. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992.
  • I Live in Music (edited by Linda Sunshine; illustrated by Romare Bearden). New York: Stewart, Tabori, & Chang, 1994.
  • The Sweet Breath of Life: A poetic narrative of the African-American family (photos by the Kamoinge Workshop). New York: Atria Books, 2004.

Plays[]

  • A Photograph: Lovers in motion: A drama. New York: Samuel French, 1977.
  • Plays: One.London: Methuen, 1992.
  • (Contributor) Jules Feiffer, Selected from Contemporary American Plays: An anthology. New York: Literacy Volunteers of New York City, 1990.

Novels[]

  • Sassafrass. San Lorenzo, CA: Shameless Hussy Press, 1976
    • revised as Sassafrass, Cypress, and Indigo. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1982.
  • For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/ When the Rainbow Is Enuf. San Lorenzo, CA: Shameless Hussy Press, 1976.
  • Betsey Brown. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1985.
  • Liliane: Resurrection of the Daughter. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1994.

Non-fiction[]

  • See No Evil: Prefaces, essays and accounts, 1976-1983. San Franciso, CA: Momo’s Press, 1984.
  • Foreword to Robert Mapplethorpe, The Black Book. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1986.
  • Preface to Plays by Women, Book Two: An international anthology (edited by Francoise Kourilsky & Catherine Temerson). New York: Ubu Repertory Theater Publications, 1994.
  • If I Can Cook You Know God Can. Boston: Beacon Press, 1999.

Juvenile[]

  • Whitewash (illustrated by Michael Sporn). New York: Walker, 1997.
  • Float Like a Butterfly: Muhammad Ali, the man who could float like a butterfly and sting like a bee. New York: Jump at the Sun, 2002.
  • Ellington Was Not a Street. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003.
  • Daddy Says New York: Simon & Schuster, 2003.

Edited[]

  • The Beacon Best of 1999: Creative writing by women and men of all colors. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1999.


Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy the Poetry Foundation,[9]

Plays[]

  • For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf: A choreopoem (first produced in New York, NY, at Studio Rivbea, July 7, 1975; produced off-Broadway at Anspacher Public Theatre, 1976; produced on Broadway at Booth Theatre, September 15, 1976). San Lorenzo, CA: Shameless Hussy Press, 1975; revised edition, New York: Macmillan, 1976.
  • A Photograph: A Study of Cruelty (poem-play; first produced off-Broadway at Public Theatre, December 21, 1977; revised and produced as A Photograph: Lovers in Motion in Houston, TX, at the Equinox Theatre, November, 1979). New York: S. French, 1981.
  • (With Thulani Nkabinde and Jessica Hagedorn) Where the Mississippi Meets the Amazon (first produced in New York, NY, at Public Theatre Cabaret, December 18, 1977).
  • From Okra to Greens: A Different Kinda Love Story; A Play with Music and Dance (first produced in New York, NY, at Barnard College, November, 1978), New York: S. French, 1985; revised as Mouths. New York: The Kitchen, 1981.
  • Boogie Woogie Landscapes (in Poetry at the Public series; produced at Shakespeare Festival [New York, NY], 1978; revised as Black and White Two-Dimensional Planes, produced at Sounds in Motion Studio Works, New York, February, 1979 ; revised and produced on Broadway, at Symphony Space Theater, 1979; produced in Washington, DC, at John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, 1980). New YOrk: St. Martin's Press, 1978.
  • Spell No.7: A Geechee Quick Magic Trance Manual (produced on Broadway at Joseph Papp's New York Shakespeare Festival Public Theater, July 15, 1979); published as Spell No.7: A Theatre Piece in Two Acts. New York: S. French, 1981.
  • (Adapter) Bertolt Brecht, Mother Courage and Her Children (first produced off-Broadway at the Public Theatre, April, 1980).
  • Carrie (operetta, first produced in 1981).
  • Three Pieces: Spell No.7; A Photograph: Lovers in Motion; Boogie Woogie Landscapes. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1981.
  • It Has Not Always Been This Way: A Choreopoem (revision of From Okra to Greens: A Different Kinda Love Story), (in collaboration with the Sounds in Motion Dance Company, Symphony Space Theater, [New York, NY], 1981.
  • Triptych and Bocas: A Performance Piece (revision of From Okra to Greens: A Different Kinda Love Story). Los Angeles: Mark Taper Forum, 1982.
  • Three for a Full Moon [and] Bocas (first produced in Los Angeles, CA, at the Mark Taper Forum Lab, Center Theatre, April 28, 1982).
  • (Adapter) Willy Russell, Educating Rita (first produced in Atlanta, GA, by Alliance Theatre Company, 1982).
  • Three Views of Mt. Fuji (first produced at the Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, June, 1987, produced in New York, NY, at the New Dramatists, October, 1987).
  • Betsey Brown: A Rhythm and Blues Musical (produced in Philadelphia, PA, at American Music Theater Festival, 1989).
  • The Love Space Demands: A Continuing Saga (produced in New Brunswick, NJ, at Crossroads Theater, March 1992; in Philadelphia, PA, at Painted Bride Art Center, 1993).
  • Whitewash (video screenplay). First Run Features, 1994.


Except where noted, information courtesy the Poetry Foundation.[9]

See also[]

Sorry_by_Ntozake_Shange

Sorry by Ntozake Shange

References[]

  • Als, Hilton (8 November 2010). "Life and Letters: Color Vision". The New Yorker 86 (35): 42–47. 
  • Thomson, Gale. (2007). "Ntozake Shange". In Contemporary Authors Online. Apr 2008.
  • Weaver, A.A. (2005). "Ntozake Shange Biographical Information". In Women of Color, Women of Words. Apr 2008.

Notes[]

  1. ↑ Lester,N: "At the Heart of Shange's Feminism: An Interview", Black American Literature Forum, 24(4): 717-730
  2. ↑ http://www.filmreference.com/film/63/Ntozake-Shange.html
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/~cybers/shange2.html
  4. ↑ The Ultimate New Jersey High School Year Book. 
  5. ↑ http://www.bvonbooks.com/2010/10/15/interview-author-ntozake-shange-for-colored-girls/
  6. ↑ Blackwell, H: An Interview with Ntozake Shange," Black American Literature Forum, 13(4): 134-138
  7. ↑ Felicia R. Lee, "A Writer’s Struggles, on and Off the Page," New York Times, September 17, 2010. Retrieved September 30, 2010.
  8. ↑ http://galenet.galegroup.com.proxy.libraries.rutgers.edu
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Ntozake Shange b. 1948, Poetry Foundation, Web, Dec. 3, 2012.

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