October 08, 2003
SYRACUSE ---Actor, director, and producer Val Gray Ward will present a Black Poetry Day program at Onondaga County Public Library's Petit Branch on Monday, October 20, at 7 p.m. Ward will perform poems by Langston Hughes from her CD Rhapsody in Hughes 101, which has been recommended for a Grammy Award.
Known as “The Voice of the Black Writer,” the multitalented Ward has performed throughout the United States, Canada, and the Caribbean, as well as in Nigeria, Tanzania, and Japan. Whether she is conveying the laughter and pain of Hughes' poetry in rap, jazz, and blues, or assuming the roles of 17 different characters in her onewoman show “My Soul Is a Witness,” Ward mesmerizes audiences with her dynamic presence. Under her direction, the PBS television production Precious Memories: Strolling 47th Street won an Emmy in 1988.
In 1968, Ward founded the Kuumba theatre, Chicago's oldest continuous Black theatre, where she produced and directed James Baldwin's The Amen Corner, Charles Fuller's Five On the Black Hand Side, and Welcome to Black River by Samm Art Williams.
Petit Branch Library is located at 105 Victoria Place, in the heart of the Westcott Street neighborhood. For more information, call 435-3636.
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