A Comedy of Negro Life

Mule Bone is the only collaboration between Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes—two towering figures of the Harlem Renaissance—and occupies a unique place in African American theater history. Set in Eatonville, Florida, Hurston’s hometown and the backdrop for much of her fiction, the play brims with humor, music, and community life.

The story follows Jim and Dave, a lively two-man song-and-dance team whose friendship unravels when they both fall for Daisy. Fueled by jealousy, Jim strikes Dave with a mule bone, setting off a comic chain of events that divides the entire town. The Methodists argue that Jim should be forgiven, while the Baptists insist he must be banished for his wrongdoing.

This edition also includes the dramatic history behind the play’s creation and the rift it caused between Hurston and Hughes, resulting in a decades-long copyright dispute that prevented the work from being staged until its 1991 premiere at Lincoln Center—sixty years after it was written.

Supplementary materials include “The Bone of Contention,” Hurston’s short story that inspired the play; personal correspondence between the two authors; and critical essays that shed light on both the work and the dazzling Harlem Renaissance era in which it was conceived.