What It’s Like … to Reclaim Rollins History Through Theatre

Nearly 100 years after Zora Neale Hurston’s work went unrealized at the Annie Russell Theatre, Rollins students have brought her voice home. For Conner Chaumley ’26, Yasmine Hudson ’27, and Max Payton ’27, the research and creative process moved in tandem, giving rise to an original, student-written play. Guided by theatre professor Marianne DiQuattro, the team spent a year immersed in archival research, fieldwork, and collaborative playwriting to create Let the People Sing, an original documentary drama inspired by Hurston’s 1933 musical revue From Sun to Sun and her anthropological work in Central Florida.

From research trips to Hurston’s hometown of Eatonville to traveling to the Zora Neale Hurston Summit in New York City to drafting scenes together on the Annie Russell stage, the student co-authors transformed their findings into a final production that gives voice to this important piece of history.

“At that time in Winter Park, we were living under the Jim Crow South,” says DiQuattro, “and as a result, Zora Neale Hurston and her performers were not permitted to stage the show at the Annie Russell Theatre. I wanted the chance with students to dive into that history and discover parts of the story that hadn’t been told yet.”

Let the People Sing is both a reclamation of a little-known chapter in Rollins’ past and a celebration of Black joy, artistry, and scholarship, bringing history full circle by honoring Hurston in the very space where her work was once excluded. Hear from the students behind the play as they reflect on collaborating with each other and alongside DiQuattro to bring Hurston’s story to the stage.

Finding Zora

Chaumley: “What initially drew me to her work and her research was the fact that she was a famous African American figure in our history. But what really drew me in was being able to tell her story in the form of theater. Over time, understanding the history of the Annie Russell Theatre—as it continued to have more students of color on the stage—inspired me.”

Payton: “I learned about Zora in my anthropology classes as a pioneer of ’anthropology at home,’ as in, not traveling across the world to study other people but studying your own people. But I had no idea she had a theatrical career. It was interesting to learn about how she told stories and to read her academic and creative work.”

Hudson: “In all honesty, I had no idea who Zora Neale Hurston was before starting this project. I believe I read a book she wrote for class years ago, but beyond that, I didn’t know anything. As the project progressed, I began to reflect on how little her legacy is known, especially among my generation. I’m happy the project shed more light on her.”

A Creative Pivot

Hudson: “The first time we read Act One, I remember saying, ‘This is boring.’ Looking back, I should have used better wording, but at the time, it was what we needed to hear to create something better.”

Payton: “About maybe five weeks in, we had finished writing Act One, and we read through it, and it was bad. It was long and fluffy. That was a big moment because before that we thought we were actually halfway done. The project was intended to be a documentary drama, which is a very specific form of script, but what we ended up with at that point was not a documentary drama; it was just historical fiction. We cut it down and took it in a documentary-style direction. We’re not just watching the story unfold as realism; we’re watching it through the lens of 100 years later, and a lot of things have happened since the events of this story. We turned the whole thing inside out and added the frame of Zora as an unreliable narrator, which was something she actually did in her writing.”

The Biggest Challenge

Chaumley: “After making a timeline of events using Zora’s biography, we narrowed them down by significance. We continued to read different parts of her work along with the folktales that she told, and we did an improv technique called devising, creating different improvised scenes that ended up on stage. All three of us have been part of Rollins Improv Players, so improvising with Dr. DiQuattro allowed us to utilize a technique that theatre professor David Charles taught us.”

Payton: “Writing dialogue is hard, and writing dialect is hard. Although we knew what happened, we didn’t know exactly what people said to each other and how during that era. We knew approximately when Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes met, but we weren’t there. Luckily, we did have a lot of letters about meetings that happened, which we included in the script. We were reading those and extrapolating what that looked like rather than what it sounded like in words. The best we could do was read it out loud, and Dr. DiQuattro would help us understand how different people spoke in the 1930s.”

Changing the Stage

Payton: “This part of Rollins history rarely comes up. In writing this play, I saw a lot of familiar names—not just Annie Russell and Hamilton Holt—but, for instance, the Edwin O. Grover Classroom in the library; Grover is a character in the play. It’s nice to see names on buildings come to life, and it’s nice to have Black music and dance, which is not in the same cultural category as perhaps classical or liturgical music. Music is such a universal thing, and to honor through music is to honor through a language that everyone speaks. In the play, we talk about how Annie Russell herself only put on pure elitist theater, and she wouldn’t go for this type of music. It’s important to have this show on the Annie Russell stage and change the programming.”

Hudson: “Working on a new piece at the Annie Russell made me reflect on how Rollins frames its canon. It showed me how far we’ve come in acknowledging overlooked histories. Within theatre as a whole, we don’t have a lot of stories that celebrate Black joy. The experience left me seeing the canon here as evolving but not fully transformed.”

Chaumley: “Just being a part of Rollins theater history is inspiring. This process has shown how much we’ve progressed when it comes to our culture and history. Two years ago, we did A Raisin in the Sun, which was the first time we ever had a full Black cast on the Annie stage. I want to continue that legacy of putting more students of color on the stage.”

The Power of Collaboration

Chaumley: “My goal is to be an actor, but I would love to write for television as well. This project has helped me become a better researcher—not only for my academic classes but for scriptwriting in the future. It has helped me take ownership and pride in the work that I’ve done and helped me realize I am capable of doing great things.”

Hudson: “Doing this project introduced me to a new type of theatre that had always intimidated me. As someone who doesn’t claim to be a writer, I tried to avoid signing up for this project. But I’m so glad I did. This experience allowed me to improve not just my writing skills but also my storytelling abilities.”

Payton: “This experience has been fulfilling and meaningful. I came to Rollins knowing I wanted to major in anthropology, and I sort of discovered theater by accident. I had been wondering how I might combine the two disciplines because they seem so opposite to me. I felt like I would be well suited to this research experience but also as a creative project about an anthropologist. I have always thought of myself as an academic first, and now I want to make something. I want to create art. That’s an insight into where I might take my career.”

Watch as Spectrum News goes inside Let the People Sing, shining a spotlight on this important production that took place at the Annie Russell Theatre in November.