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Your Eyes Can Be Watching A Zora Neale Hurston Program

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By GEORGE H. NEWMAN

The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 10, 2008

PLANT CITY - The staff at Bruton Memorial Library is once again turning back time with a presenter who will show her audience what a historical writer looked and sounded like about 70 years ago.

The highly acclaimed Florida author Zora Neale Hurston will come alive onstage at the library at 7 p.m. Thursday through the creative genius of actress and poet Phyllis McEwen, who lives in the Tampa area. During the presentation, McEwen will remember Hurston's time in Haiti during the writing of her highly acclaimed book "Their Eyes Were Watching God."

The free presentation is part of a monthlong effort by the Hillsborough County Library Cooperatives to encourage reading and visual studies of great American writers. Bruton Memorial is at 302 McLendon St.

McEwen has appeared in Plant City several times, Bruton Memorial Library Director Anne Haywood said.

"In her presentation, she is Zora inside and out. Following the performance she will take questions from the audience, remaining in character. All questions should deal with her life up to 1937, when the book was published," Haywood said.

Hurston was born in Notasulga, Ala., in 1891. Her family soon moved to Eatonville, just north of Orlando. The town was incorporated in 1887 and was made up solely of black residents. Her father became the town's minster and mayor.

After leaving home at an early age, Hurston traveled to Harlem, where she performed in the Gilbert and Sullivan repertoire company. On the advice of a mentor, at the age of 27, she returned to high school, telling Baltimore authorities she was 17 in order to gain a free education. From there, she attended Howard Academy and Howard University and began her writing career.

In 1925, shortly before entering Barnard College, she became one of the leaders of the literary renaissance happening in Harlem, producing the short-lived literary magazine titled Fire!! along with Langston Hughes and Wallace Thurman. This literary movement became the center of the Harlem Renaissance.

Her craft led her to many new places around the country, as well as Haiti and Jamaica. She produced successful novels, short stories and autobiographies that kept her publisher busy, but fell short in granting her financial independence. She often depended on grants and endowments to keep her financially viable.

Her novel "Their Eyes Were Watching God" depicts a proud, independent black woman's quest for identity. Hurston died in 1960

"Hurston wrote that novel in just seven or eight weeks," Haywood said. "Her skills were extraordinary. I am sure that the students, teachers and members of the general public who witness this presentation will come away with a real appreciation for both Zora Hurston and Phyllis McEwen."

The dramatization will appear following the annual meeting of the Friends of the Bruton Memorial Library. For information, call Haywood at (813) 757-9215.

Reporter George H. Newman can be reached at (813) 865-4451 or gnewman@tampatrib.com.

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