Art Collective Program Brings Art to New Yorkers With Psychiatric Disabilities

Community Access' 'Art Collective Program' teaches people to create original works of art, with a focus on designing, writing and constructing hand-crafted books. Ntozake Shange has joined forces with Community Access as a visiting artist in its New York City-based art program for people with psychiatric disabilities.

Shange is the author of the landmark theater work 'For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf', which is headed to Broadway again with a new contemporized script and is being adapted for a film version directed by Tyler Perry.

Community Access is a leading provider of housing, employment preparation, counseling and support services for low-income New Yorkers with mental illness. The organization helps people recover and lead independent lives through providing multiple self-help and healing outlets.

Shange and her real-life sister, Ifa Bayeza, also a celebrated playwright and poet, will appear in a benefit event together on June 24, 2010 to help raise support and awareness for Community Access. The event, to be held at the Riverside Church Theatre in New York City, will begin at 6 PM with a VIP reception, followed by a 7 PM reading by the sisters from selected published and unpublished short works related to family, personal recovery and community healing.

For more information visit www.communityaccess.org.