UGA students, faculty, and Athens community members have had the opportunity to collaborate this semester on a unique and original performance presentation titled "Favored by the Muses."  “Favored by the Muses” is the culmination of a year-long collaboration between UGA and TCU Humanities and Education programs that celebrates the literary and cultural legacy of America’s first published black female poet, Phillis Wheatley Peters (1753-1784), and the sesquicentennial of her collection, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773).

The presentation will take place during the annual Spotlight on the Arts Festival on November 6^th in the Balcony Theatre (Room 400) of the Fine Arts Building at 7 p.m., followed by a Q&A with participants.  This event is free and open to the public and is generously funded by a Public Impact Grant from the University of Georgia’s Willson Center for Humanities and Arts.

This performance project represents an innovative collaboration between faculty and students in the University of Georgia's departments of English, Theatre and Film Studies, African Studies, African American Studies, Music, Digital Media, and Dance, as well as Athens community members. They recreate elements of 1934’s Phillis Wheatley Pageant, written by the early 20^th century Black activist, educator, and clubwoman, Mary Church Terrell (1863-1954). Composed by Terrell to critically commemorate the bicentennial of George Washington’s birth while honoring the heritage of Phyllis Wheatley, the Phyllis Wheatley Pageant tells the story of the poet’s kidnapping from Senegambia, her enslavement as a child in 1761, and her subsequent rise to transatlantic literary fame as a teen and young adult. The script for Favored by the Muses is written and directed by Professor George Contini (Performance Area Head and Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor, Theatre & Film Studies). It is drawn completely from his research of Terrell’s manuscripts and letters held at the Library of Congress and Howard University’s Moorland-Spingarn Research Center.