Betsey Brown musical adaptation script with highlighting and handwritten notes, circa 1989

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.