Ntozake Shange

Woodie King, Jr.'s New Federal Theatre in association with the Castillo Theatre, presented It Hasn't Always Been This Way, an evocative and visionary choreo-poem by Ntozake Shange. It Hasn't Always Been This Way, which opened February 21 and ran for 10 performances, featured original music composed and arranged by Olu Dara and was directed and choreographed by Dianne McIntyre.

"At its core," said Ms. Shange. "It Hasn't Always Been This Way's themes explore pre-urban-renewal African-American life through its postmodern condition." It Hasn't Always Been This Way was part of a four-week retrospective of stage works by the OBIE, Drama Desk and AUDELCO award-winning playwright, actress, director, novelist, educator, Ntozake Shange. Author of the landmark for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf (1975) originally produced byWoodie King, Jr. and Joseph Papp, Shange has since written numerous plays, poems and other works, including an adaptation of Bertolt Brecht's Mother Courage and Her Children (1980), for which she won her second Obie Award.

It Hasn't Always Been This Way featured a talented cast including: Shireen Dickson, *Nina Domingue, *Petronia Paley, *Charles Wallace

* Courtesy of Actor's Equity Association