Ntozake Shange

Playwright Bio

Ntozake Shange was born on October 18, 1948, to a relatively wealthy Black family in Trenton, New Jersey. Her birth name was Paulette Linda Williams. Prior to changing her name, she received a BA in American Studies from Barnard College and went through a divorce, during which time she struggled with depression and suicidal ideation. She changed her name to Ntozake Shange--which means "she who comes with her own things" and "walks like lion"--while she was getting her Master's Degree in American Studies from the University of Southern California in the early 1970s.

She is most famous for her invention of the "choreopoem," a mixture of poetry, dance, music, and theatre. The most enduring example of these choreopoems is for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf, which debuted in 1975 at the Public Theatre and ran for two years. She also published poems, novels, essays, and children's books that all had the lyrical, poetic quality inherent in her choreopoems and plays. Shange played with convention and structure in all her work, no matter the genre.

After dealing with neurological and cardiological health issues for the last several years of her life, Shange passed away in New York on October 27, 2018. She continued to create up until her death.

Photo: https://www.smith.edu/academics/poetry-center/ntozake-shange

Highlighted Play: spell no. 7

Annotation

spell no. 7 or spell #7: Geechee jibaro Quik magic trance manual for technologically stressed third world people was first produced in 1979. It is a choreopoem about a group of Black performers where they discuss the various issues that come from performing Blackness for mostly white audiences. Fittingly, a giant minstrel mask hangs over the stage during the whole piece. The play ends with Lou, a magician, claiming that he will never turn a Black person white but he can help them love their Blackness.

Sample Audience/Sample Activity

This choreopoem would best be discussed with a higher-level high school or college drama class. Because it features performers, it would be best to do in a performance-based class rather than a discussion-based class, because the students who are used to being onstage will relate to it more. The piece contains material to spark a lot of interesting dialogue about performance, language, race, culture, societal expectations, and history, all symbolized by the giant minstrel mask that overshadows the production. In order to relate to the themes of authenticity and performativity that run through the whole piece, students could each make a mask that presents an exaggerated version of society's expectations of them. The activity should be scaffolded by a discussion of stereotyping and how stereotypes affect marginalized groups in more destructive ways--but that being said, everyone can relate to being stereotyped and not being able to or wanting to live up to that stereotype. This activity is personal and the students should not be required to share their mask or their reasoning, but it can be an option to share.

Discussion Questions

  • Why does Ntozake Shange write the physical language of her choreopoem in such a distinctive way? What goals does her language accomplish?

  • How, as an actor, director, or teacher, would you work with this language?

  • Does it work to read spell no. 7 or does the choreopoem need to be physicalized?

  • How do, or should, performers navigate the balance between authenticity and performativity in real life and in spell no. 7?

  • How does race/marginalization affect performativity?

Photo: New York Shakespeare Festival production of spell no. 7

for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf

Ntozake Shange's most famous work was first produced in 1975 at the Public in New York City. It is a choreopoem exploring race, gender, and sexuality and all the ins and outs of their intersections. The Public's description reads: "Filled with passion, humor, and raw honesty, legendary playwright/poet Ntozake Shange’s form-changing choreopoem tells the stories of seven women of color using poetry, song, and movement. With unflinching honesty and emotion, each woman voices her survival story of having to exist in a world shaped by sexism and racism." The piece can be used with upper-level high schoolers and above.

Photo: https://ncblackrep.org/event/for-colored-girls-who-have-considered-suicide-when-the-rainbow-is-enuf/2019-08-01/

Mother Courage and Her Children (adaptation)


An adaptation of Bertolt Brecht's famous play, Ntozake Shange's Mother Courage takes place in the American Southwest after the Civil War. By transposing the action to this racialized time and place, Shange asks about the universality of war and suffering. Southern Rep, which recently produced the play, says of it: "Mother Courage struggles to survive the war by profiting from it but ends up paying the ultimate cost. [...] Shange’s adaptation puts a uniquely American spin on Brecht’s classic drama that forces us to ask how, in the darkest of times, do we survive with our humanity intact?" The piece is a good companion to a discussion of Brecht and his work, as it forces comparison between the German setting and the American one. It can be discussed or performed with high schoolers and above.

Photo: http://www.southernrep.com/mother-courage-and-her-children/

Comprehensive List of Plays

  • for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf (1975)

  • A Photograph: Lovers in Motion (1977)

  • Where the Mississippi Meets the Amazon (1977)

  • A Photograph: Study of Cruelty (1977)

  • Boogie Woogie Landscapes (1979)

  • spell no. 7 or spell #7: Geechee jibaro Quik magic trance manual for technologically stressed third world people (1979)

  • Black and White Two-Dimensional Planes (1979)

  • Mother Courage and Her Children (1980)

  • Three for a Full Moon (1982)

  • Bocas (1982)

  • From Okra to Greens/A Different Kind of Love Story (1983)

  • Three views of Mt. Fuji (1987)

  • Daddy Says (1989)

  • Whitewash (1994)

Additional Resources

Review of Shange's work by Black Arts contemporary Amiri Baraka: "Ntozake Shange: Beyond the Rainbow" Washington Post. 19 July 1981. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/entertainment/books/1981/07/19/ntozake-shange-beyond-the-rainbow/38ad6816-81d9-4355-8fd4-c2b2a328920f/

Scholarly article about Shange's work: Brown, E. Barnsley. “‘The Human Body in Motion’: Writing the Body/Righting History in the Plays of Ntozake Shange." Obsidian III, vol. 1 no. 1 (spring-summer 1999), pp. 212-238. https://www.jstor.org/stable/44511503?seq=1

An article about Shange's later works: Leland, John. "A Poet with Words Trapped Inside." The New York Times. 25 October 2013. https://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/27/nyregion/a-poet-with-words-trapped-inside.html?auth=login-google


Photo: https://www.newframe.com/sing-black-girls-song-ntozake-shanges-genius/

Bibliography

Webpage compiled by Zoe Huber-Weiss (Spring 2021).