LIVE RICH,
DIE POOR
In 1975 Alice Walker sets out on the quest to locate Zora Neale Hurston gravesite and give honor her with a tombstone. Our story asks what if Alice had accidentally awaken Zora while on this noble quest.
This is where our story begins. It is an original, fictional, one woman play on the life of Zora Neale Hurston. In Live Rich Die Poor, actress and writer Ann Perry Wallace re-imagines scenes from Zora Neale Hurston’s life; from her happy days in Eatonville, the devastating loss of her mother, hints of the lost years of wandering that she never spoke of, to arriving in New York and becoming a fixture within the art world of the Harlem Renaissance, becoming an academic, and even her falling out with her best friend Langston Hughes.
This is a study of a woman who fought to live and use every single gift while she lived. Her life has the power to instruct, inspire and illuminate. This show captures the vulnerable Zora we don't often read about, and it asks us if we are living in a way in which we are emptying ourselves out and using all of our gifts.
Strap in and put yourself in Zora's shoes as she confronts her life choices and discovers the reach of her impact.
"I loved the show. Your performance left me breathless."
-Zoe
"I was mesmerized by the material and especially the performance. Truly a gift. Thank you."
-Gail
"Incredible, intimate, moving, multifaceted, humbling. Thank you for offering your brilliance for and to us, your voice and vibe and persona have left us better and Zora Neale Hurston is memorialized in the best way possible."
-Father Ollie
What Professors Are Saying About Live Rich Die Poor
"Everybody worth anything knows a good bit about our black southern woman heroine, the Eatonville ethnographer who wrote and lived as beautifully as anyone could ask for. But Ann Perry Wallace's Live Rich Die Poor goes beyond the Zora that circulates in Internet quotes or even in our own imaginations. In it we see through Hurston's interiority, told through Wallace's body and lens, but decidedly Zora's spirit and learn so much more about our heroine, the woman, the artist and moreover our own selves. What does it cost for a black woman artist to be free? Ann Perry Wallace beautifully channels Zora Neale Hurston, beyond what we know about her and into her interior life, assessing the costs of living and dying free in America today."
Zandria F. Robinson, Ph. D
Associate Professor of Black Studies
Georgetown University
Bring Zora's story to your school, organization, or city!
Fill out the interest form below to find out how you can host Live Rich Die Poor in your city!