Though primarily known as a playwright, especially for the 1975 play For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf, Ntozake Shange was also a prolific poet and a novelist, children's writer and essayist. She grew up in an artistic and politically-involved family, whose guests included famous musicians, actors and leaders, such as Miles Davis and W.E.B. Dubois. Though her work often focused on the black experience in America, her themes also included femininity, family, power and art—especially music.