Hurston 'a role you die for,' actress says
By LaShanna Carter
Staff Writer
An intelligent, talented, opinionated, outspoken, courageous and challenging woman possessed all these qualities and made the American people love her. This prolific woman was the great Zora Neale Hurston.The life and struggles of Zora Neale Hurston comes alive in a theatrical play about her life.The National Black Touring Circuit Inc. of New York presents "Zora Neale Hurston" by playwright Laurence Holder, directed by Wyn Handman and starring Elizabeth Van Dyke with Joseph Edwards.
Van Dyke, an actress and director, become known for her portrayal of Hurston.
She won the 1991 AUDELCO award for Best Actress and for Best Play.
She has been touring the country playing Zora during the Black Arts Festival.
The public embraced the production with a love for Zora, our history and ourselves.
"I felt that I had to be in complete shape physically, mentally and vocally to do this role" said Van Dyke in a review from the Times Union.
"It's a role you kill for," she said. "It stretches you to the very limits of your abilities and beyond."
Van Dyke believes that being the leading role in a one-woman play required her to be the best, especially portraying a woman like Hurston.
The setting of the play is in a New York City bus station on Christmas Eve, 1949.
The play moves from the Harlem Renaissance through the eras of jazz, Jim Crow and white liberals.
The politics that shaped America during her life are an important part of the play.
Hurston published novels, short stories, essays and at least a dozen plays and musicals within 20 years.
She also became the first black woman admitted to Barnard College, receiving honorary doctorates.
Hurston's life is a journey that took a brilliant and independent woman from an all black Florida township to the covers of national magazines.
Her strong opinions both angered and inspired her contemporaries and later generations of young black writers.
Hurston died in 1960 at the St. Lucie County Welfare home.
She was buried in an unmarked grave in a segregated cemetery in Fort Pierce.
The performance will be tonight at 8 p. m. at the Singletary Center for the Arts.
Tickets are available at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Cultural Center or at Singletary Center box office.
The prices are $8 for the general public and $7 for students.
Hurston 'a role you die for,' actress says
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