Cleveland Public Library will host the FREE and open to the public debut stage reading of the Karamu House production of The Fire inside: the Story and Poetry of Nikki Giovanni, on Saturday, February 17 at 3:00 p.m. in the Louis Stokes Wing Auditorium, of the Main Library, 325 Superior Avenue. Written by Susan Watson Turner and directed by Terrence Spivey, artistic director of Karamu, The Fire Inside presents an ensemble cast in a dramatization of the life and works of the African American poet, following Giovanni’s career from her early years in the Black Arts Movement through her writing and life today. The play will make its world debut in July at Cleveland’s annual Ingenuity Festival.

Giovanni was born in 1943 in Knoxville, Tennessee but grew up in Cincinnati. She graduated with honors from Fisk University and is on the faculty at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. Her first book of poems, Black Feeling, Black Talk (1968) sold more than 10,000 copies. That book and others established her as one of the leading figures of the Black Arts Movement. Giovanni has since published two dozen books of poems for adults and children and essays and autobiographical works.

Susan Watson Turner began her career as an actor and director at the Karamu Theatre. She served at the Negro Ensemble Company in New York as general manager and producing director where she worked on such plays as The Absolution of Willie Mae. Watson Turner holds a bachelor’s degree from Ohio University and an MFA from Columbia University. She is an assistant professor in the theatre department at Lehman College in the Bronx.

Terrence Spivey is a native of Kountze, Texas, and received his bachelor’s degree in theatre arts at Prairie View A&M University (TX). Spivey appeared in numerous off Broadway productions, music videos and independent films. He served as guest director at Karamu for a production of The Little Tommy Parker Celebrated Colored Minstrel Show and became the company’s artistic director. For more information, call (216) 623-2881.

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