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Michael Kinsey and Jnana Wilson are in the cast of Spunk, George C. Wolfe's adaptation of three stories by Zora Neale Hurston, staged by the West Coast Black Theatre Troupe. Correctness - political or otherwise - goes right out the window in Hurston's yarns of black folks' lives in the 1920s, with battered wives and two-timing husbands, pimps and a small-town grifter "wid his mouth full of gold teethes."
Hurston, born in the Central Florida town of Eatonville in 1891, was the most acclaimed black female writer of her time, from the Harlem Renaissance up until the Korean War. But then the author of seven books - her masterpiece was Their Eyes Were Watching God - vanished from public view. When she died in 1960, Hurston was a resident of the St. Lucie County Welfare Home; she was buried in an unmarked grave in the Garden of Heavenly Rest, a segregated cemetery in Fort Pierce. It took black feminist authors of the 1970s, such as Alice Walker, Toni Cade Bambara, Gayl Jones and Gloria Naylor, to rediscover her.
Spunk, directed by Van Huff, has guitar accompaniment. It opens today and runs through April 18. Performances are at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday, with 3 p.m. matinees on Saturday and Sunday, at the Gompertz Theatre, 1247 First St., Sarasota. $21. (941) 954-4651.
- JOHN FLEMING, Times performing arts critic
Spring dance
The Florida Gulf Coast Ballet dances a mixed program in its spring concert. Guest artist Amanda Weingarten, a former member of the company now studying at New York's School of American Ballet, will be featured in Paquita. Also on the agenda are A Midsummer Night's Dream and modern works. The performance is at 7 p.m. Saturday at the Largo Cultural Center, 105 Central Park Drive. $5, $15. (727) 587-6793.
- JOHN FLEMING, Times performing arts critic