St. Louis native playwright and author Ntozake Shange (pronounced En-toe-ZAK-kay SHONG-gay) will tour the city reading from her best-selling book Betsey Brown chosen as the ReadMOre 2005 selection. ReadMOre is a state-wide reading collaboration between the State of Missouri and area libraries encouraging citizens to unite annually in the reading and discussing of at least one book. Shange’s novel, written in 1985, is a semi-autobiographical account of an African-American St. Louis family affected by racial tensions, desegregation and marital conflict in the late 1950s.
Although she has written nearly 30 books and plays over the last three decades, Shange is most widely known for her 1975 stage production For colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf: a choreopoem. The all-female cast blends poetry, dance, and theatre to celebrate their kinship and support of each other as well as the loves and triumphs that define their individual identities as black women.
Ntozake Shange
7 p.m., Wed., May 4
Julia Davis Branch Library, 4415 Natural Bridge
Call 383-3021
7 p.m. Thurs., May 5
Missouri History Museum, Lindell and DeBaliviere in Forest Park
Call 746-4599
7 p.m., Fri., May 6
St. Louis County Headquarters, 1640 S. Lindbergh Blvd.
Call 994-3300
