Touring Across The Soviet Union

"[Maya Angelou] won a role in a touring production of  Porgy and Bess and performed in 22 countries from 1954 to 1955," writes Elaine Woo in her Los Angeles Times obituary (May 28, 2014) of the world-renowned poet and memoirist.

That sentence brought to mind Truman Capote's 1958 nonfiction book, And the Muses Were Heard, in which he chronicled the activities of a troupe of African American actors traveling across the Soviet Union by train to perform Porgy and Bess. I'm certain that Maya Angelou, not mentioned by name, was one of the actors on that trip. The timeline seems to fit.