Chapter 20, Theater in a Suitcase Summary

When he returned to Harlem in January of 1938, Langston helped build a theater for blacks called the Harlem Suitcase Theater, which was perhaps New York's first theater-in-the-round. The first play produced by the theater was Hughes' Don't you Want To Be Free? a highly poetic play in which Langston included twelve of his poems. Don't You Want to Be Free? ran for a record one hundred and thirty-five consecutive performances - the longest ever for a Harlem based play. Langston's plays became more socially relevant, as he began to write about current events. Hughes continued to aid his friends in Spain, and translated and published some of Garcia Lorca's poems.

He founded another theater in Los Angeles called the New Negro Theater. The theater opened with Don't You Want to Be Free? Hughes wrote a...