The Life and Work or Langston Hughes

“An artist must be free to choose what he does, certainly, but he must also never be afraid to do what he might choose.”

James Mercer Langston Hughes, the African-American poet, playwright, novelist and voice of the Harlem Renaissance, was born in Joplin, Missouri, but moved to Cleveland in 1916 where he first began writing seriously as a student at Central High.  His earliest efforts were encouraged by Russell and Rowena Jelliffe, founders of the Playhouse Settlement, which became Cleveland’s famous karamu House, where several of his plays were first staged.

WordStage’s literary concert offers an innovative biographical narrative embedded with Hughes’s own poetry, prose and live music and song inspired by his work.