Zora on My Mind

A Black Woman’s Chamber Musical

Book by Anita Gonzalez

Music and Lyrics by Diana Lawrence

Devised with Shaka Gonzalez Brown, Alexandria Davis, Antonio Disla, Anita Gonzalez, Diana Lawrence, and Fredi Walker Browne

The chamber musical is a journey of self-love, storytelling, and finding one’s purpose. The central character is a fiercely independent woman named Key, a woman Zora would want to see. Two female interlocutors, Sophie (a Black woman), and Draft (a white woman) want to author the story of Key. They write her as a hard working Black woman who runs two  businesses – a one-chair beauty shop and an inherited boarding house. When they introduce the character of shoe shine salesman Malik who rents a room in Key’s place, the writers’ inventions rebel and change up the story.  The musical romp is inspired by Zora Neale Hurston’s essays “Characteristics of Negro Expression” and “How it Feels to be Colored Me.”

News

Full Production Workshop May 23 through June 10, 2022 at Georgetown University 3700 O st NW Washington D.C.