'Simply Langston!' (2009)

 

In this one-man play, Don Miller writes, directs and stars in a 4-part examination of the life of lauded poet Langston Hughes. 

 

"I am pleased to be able to just breathe a breath of fresh air about how his poetry inspired a society", Miller said.

 

A four-piece jazz ensemble, directed by Mr. Charles Burns, is also a major component to this show, as music was a strong inspiration for Hughes.

 

The play looks at four periods in Hughes' life and his writings during that time.

 

• Harlem Renaissance - A cultural movement in the 1920s and '30s that marked the first time mainstream publishers and critics took African American literature seriously.

• World War II & the Jim Crow Era - Hughes escaped the draft because of his age, but he used the war to write about the segregationalist Jim Crow laws.

• Communism After the War - Hughes, who had spent a year in Russia in his youth, was among those to come under suspicion during the Joseph McCarthy Era. 

• "Jesse B. Semple" - Hughes wrote a series of stories about a fictional Harlem everyman, who became known as "Simple," that ran in the Chicago Defender and other papers. The stories were collected into novels. 

 

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