Betsey Brown, 1983-1995, undated
Scope and Contents
Subseries 1.2, Betsey Brown, 1983-1995, undated, includes copies of the published novel, multiple drafts, and scripts for the musical adaptation, including sheet music and notes. Betsey Brown, originally published as a novel in 1985 by St. Martin’s Press, presents the story of a young Black girl’s grappling with adolescence amidst racial integration of public schools in 1959 St. Louis, Missouri. The novel is drawn from Shange’s youth and experience of desegregation in St. Louis. It was later adapted into a musical and premiered at the McCarter Theatre in Philadelphia in 1991. It was prepared for, but not produced by the New York Shakespeare Festival.
Dates
- Creation: 1983-1995, undated
Creator
- From the Collection: Shange, Ntozake (Person)
Access
One journal from Series 03, Journals, Agendas, and Notes, is restricted until 2050 at the request of the Ntozake Shange Trust due to sensitive material. This collection has no other access restrictions.
Extent
From the Collection: 68.8 Linear Feet (74 document boxes, 1 half document box, 16 cartons, 7 clamshell box, 3 oversized folders, 7 oversized box, 1 binder, 1 box of digital media including CD-Rs, DVD-Rs, DVD-RWs, 3.5 inch floppy disks, and a MiniDV tape)
From the Collection: 17.1 Gigabytes (1 pdf, 43 m4a music files, and 776 jpg files)
Language
From the Collection: English
From the Collection: Spanish; Castilian
Repository Details
Part of the Barnard Archives and Special Collections Repository