Queen of Harlem Renaissance comes alive in Essential Theatre’s ‘Zora’

VIA DC THEATER ARTS

As the play begins, we find Hurston, played by Kecia Deroly, between stops as she embarks by train from Harlem, New York, back to her hometown of Eatonville, Florida. Despite her achievement as a literary pillar amid the great flourishing swell of African American arts and intellectualism, she is forced to sit in a filthy and unkempt waiting room labeled “coloreds only” as she awaits her carriage. This setting, brought to life by Tiffani Sydnor, brings to the audience a jarring reminder of the environments created in this segregationist period, and discrepancies realized through separate but equal doctrine in a detailed and concisely constructed stage.