Some Sing, Some Cry

Award-winning writer Ntozake Shange and her sister, award-winning playwright Ifa Bayeza achieve nothing less than a modern classic in this epic story of the Mayfield family. Opening dramatically at Sweet Tamarind, a rice plantation on an island off the coast of Georgia, we witness the recently emancipated Elizabeth (Bette) Mayfield saying her goodbyes before embarking for the mainland. With her granddaughter Eudora in tow, she heads to Charleston where they will make lives for themselves as seamstress and fortune-teller. Dora will marry, the Mayfield line will grow, and we will follow them on an journey through the watershed events of America's troubled, vibrant history—from Reconstruction to both World Wars, from the Harlem Renaissance to Vietnam and the modern day. Shange and Bayeza give us a monumental story of a family and of America, of songs and why we have to sing them, of home and of heartbreak, of the past and of the future, bright and blazing ahead.