Mixed Magic Theatre Presents SWEAT and THE SIX GILDED BITS

Mixed Magic Theatre (MMT) is thrilled to present Pell Award Winner Ricardo Pitts-Wiley's adaptation of "Sweat" and "The Gilded Six Bits", two short stories by Zora Neale Hurston, the celebrated author of "Their Eyes Were Watching God ". Raised in Eatonville, Florida the first all black town to incorporate in the United States, Hurston's first love was African American folklore. She was an American folklorist, anthropologist ,novelist, ethnographer, and short story writer .

Hurston is considered one of the pre-eminent writers of twentieth century African- American literature. She was a central figure in the Harlem Renaissance and has influenced such prominent writers as Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison, Gayle Jones , Alice Walker, and Toni Cade Bambara. In 1975, Ms. Magazine published Alice Walker's essay, "In Search of Zora Neale Hurston " reviving interest in the author. Hurston's four novels and two books of folklore resulted from extensive anthropological research and have proven invaluable sources on the oral cultures of African America. Through her writings, Robert Hemenway wrote in The Harlem Renaissance Remembered, Hurston" helped to remind the Renaissance - especially its more bourgeois members - of the richness in racial heritage."
Posthumous recognition for Hurston came when she was featured on the US postal stamp in 2003, she was also inducted as a member of the inaugural class of the New York Writers Hall of Fame in 2010 and was one of 12 inaugural inductees to the Alabama Writers Hall of Fame on June 8, 2015.

SWEAT and THE GILDED SIX BITS SHORT STORY SUMMARIES

Hurston's short story "Sweat" was first published in Fire Magazine in 1926. The story revolves around Delia, a washerwoman, and her unemployed, insecure husband Sykes who abuses her physically by beating her, economically by taking her income, and emotionally by putting her down. Delia who works long hard hours in a small Central Florida village is the sole bread winner. Sykes does not work, yet he resents that Delia cleans "white folks" clothes in their home. Sykes scares his wife of fifteen years by using her fear of snakes. Observers in the town remark how the once beautiful Delia has lost her shine because of her husband.Tired of Delia and seeking out freedom with his "portly" mistress Bertha, Sykes hatches a plan to poison Delia by planting a rattlesnake in her washing clothes. Delia's jaded view of Sykes and his mistreatment of her grows and she comes to feel the same way about the marriage as he does, but she feels as though she cannot leave him out of fear for her safety and out of guilt.

Delia represents women from the Deep South in the first half of the 20th Century who come to discover freedom as independence from men. During the time period when "Sweat" was written, feminist art movements were growing. Zora Neale Hurston wrote for black women, exposing their struggles with not only racism, but sexism as well. "Sweat " was considered Hurston's most remarkable work by Robert Hemenway, Chancellor of the University of Kansas, and one of her biographers. "The Gilded Six Bits", a short story written by Zora Neale Hurston in 1933, is a story full of love, betrayal, and forgiveness. It portrays the life of two happy newlyweds, Missie May and Joe, who both test their relationship and their love for one another when a charismatic outsider, Otis D.Slemmons , comes into their community and into their home. The story embodies Hurston's typical writing style in which it focuses on the common African-American lifestyle, represented by regional dialect and metaphors, and is set in her native town Eatonville, FL where it reflects the traditions of the community. "The Gilded Six-Bits" opens with the description of a house, surrounded by what is described as "a Negro yard around a Negro house in a Negro settlement. But there was something happy about that place." The characters are first introduced when Missie May awaits her husband, Joe, who is returning from work on a pay day, where he comes home and tosses silver dollars through the front door for Missie May to pick up. Like always, she pretends to be mad that he is throwing the money and playfully chases him, then goes through his pockets to find a little present that he has bought her.

Zora Neale Hurston who is considered a leading prose writer of the Harlem Renaissance, was a relative newcomer on the literary scene when these two short stories were published, but eventually had greater success with her highly acclaimed, Their Eyes Were Watching God. "Sweat and The Gilded Six Bits " appear in Hurston's compilation of short stories entitled Spunk and are now considered two of her best stories.

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