A long fascination with the ways in which the past continues to shape the present is what inspired Kenneth Brown to write Rainbow to Your Door, a play that will explore the friendship between Jules André Smith, founder of the Maitland Art Center, and Zora Neale Hurston, anthropologist and author who was raised in Eatonville.
The center’s Mayan Revival-style campus is familiar ground for Brown, a former artist-in-residence there and the first writer ever invited to be part of the program, which provides three-, six- or nine-weeks of studio space and housing.
Formerly an Orlando resident, Brown, who now lives in Los Angeles, is founder and artistic director of Cultural Fusion, a performing arts company dedicated to producing works with a Black or Hispanic point of view. Its first show, Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters’ First 100 Years, was staged at Orlando Shakes in 2015.
Brown, who learned that Smith and Hurston had been friends during a tour of the center, says he immediately knew that it had the makings of a theatrical project. So, during his residency, he immersed himself in the archives and later even visited Smith’s former home in Connecticut.
What Brown uncovered was a rich dialogue between two visionaries: Smith, a white visual artist and architect with a passion for cultural preservation, and Hurston, a Black woman writer and anthropologist who documented the folklore and stories of the African American South.
Their friendship, forged in the 1930s, defied social norms of the era. The two would often meet for tea on the grounds of what was then called the Research Studio. Together, they dreamed of establishing a “Folklore Village” in Eatonville—a collaborative space for storytelling, art and education.
That idea never came to fruition—but it did inspire a play more than 80 years later. Says Brown: “I’m honored to have the opportunity to develop a story of André Smith, who was a strong advocate for diversity and inclusion.”
The play will be staged in October in the art center’s Main Garden, just steps from where Smith and Hurston once shared tea and ideas that transcended boundaries.
The Maitland Art Center is located at 231 West Packwood Avenue in Maitland. For more information, call 407.539.2181 or visit artandhistory.org.
