Rivers of Women, The Play

RIVERS OF WOMEN, THE PLAY by poet and oral performer Shirley Bradley LeFlore is a stage-play of poems accompanied with photographs by award-winning, Chicago-based photographer Michael J. Bracey. Bracey matches his images with LeFlore’s poetry, adding a visual dimension that succeeds in endowing every poem with an added sense of depth and emotionality through his unique mode of multilayered conceptualization.The play, which is based on the poem “Rivers of Women,” includes LeFlore’s most prolific works of poetry rooted in the stories and voices of women that also incorporates music and dance. Performed by an all female cast, this poignant, heartfelt, humorous and powerful play explores family, love, woman-to-woman experiences, race and religion. In all, it is a descriptive, evocative, lyrical production filled with folk sentiments, conjuring familiar images that seem to be more the craft of an urban anthropologist than a poet, which is clearly the genius of LeFlore’s art. Rivers of Women, which premiered at the Missouri History Museum in St. Louis, marks the directorial debut of National Bestselling author and producer, Lyah Beth LeFlore, the poet’s daughter.