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Blues for an Alabama Sky by Pearl Cleage Alliance Theatre Playwright in Residence

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Blues for an Alabama Sky by Pearl Cleage Alliance Theatre Playwright in Residence Student Matinee Series ______________________________________________________________________ Blues for an Alabama Sky By Pearl Cleage Alliance Theatre Playwright in Residence Directed by Susan Booth Alliance Theatre Artistic Director Study Guide Created as part of the Alliance Theatre Institute for Educators and Teaching Artists By Barry Stewart Mann Teaching Artist On the Alliance Theatre stage April 15-May 10, 2015 On stage: ABOUT THE PLAY Blues for an Alabama Sky chronicles the aspirations and tribulations of five characters whose lives intersect in an apartment building in Harlem over an eight- week period during the summer of 1930. As the playwright Pearl Cleage notes in setting the action, “The creative euphoria of the Harlem Renaissance has given way to the harsher realities of the Great Depression.” The characters battle economic hardship and the challenges of finding success in a society where racism, sexism, and homophobia challenge them at every turn. The lives of the onstage characters are set against a panoramic view of the vibrant African American culture of the period, as they interact with key historical figures, move among iconic community landmarks, and play roles in evolving social movements. The play was commissioned by the Alliance Theatre in 1995, and had its world premiere on the Alliance stage under the direction of former Artistic Director Kenny Leon. In 1996, the production was remounted as part of the Cultural Olympiad in conjunction with Atlanta’s Centennial Olympic Games. In the twenty years since its premiere, the play has received numerous stagings across the country, at such flagship venues as Chicago’s Goodman Theatre, Hartford Stage Company, Arena Stage in Washington, DC, and the Denver Center Theatre. Phylicia Rashad as Angel Allen and Mark Young as Guy Jacobs in the original 1995 Alliance Theatre production. The Creative Mind: ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT Pearl Cleage is an acclaimed Atlanta-based playwright and novelist. In addition to Blues for an Alabama Sky, her plays include The Nacirema Society, Flyin’ West, Bourbon at the Border, and A Song for Coretta. She has written eight novels, including Babylon Sisters, I Wish I had a Red Dress, Baby Brother’s Blues, and What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day, which was an Oprah Book Club selection and spent nine weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. Pearl and her husband, writer Zaron W. Burnett, Jr., collaborated on the award-winning performance series Live at Club Zebra! for 10 years. In 1973, Pearl was a speechwriter for the Maynard Jackson campaign and later served as his first press secretary. She is a proud member of the Dramatists Guild, and the Alliance Theatre’s Playwright in Residence. WHO’S WHO in the world of BLUES . CHARACTERS who appear in the play: ANGEL ALLEN - a thirty-four-year-old black woman who looks five years younger, former back-up singer at the Cotton Club. GUY JACOBS – a thirtyish black man; costume designer at The Cotton Club. DELIA PATTERSON – a twenty-five-year-old black woman; social worker on staff at the Margaret Sanger family planning clinic. SAM THOMAS – a forty-year-old doctor at Harlem Hospital. LELAND CUNNINGHAM – a twenty-eight-year-old black man from Alabama; a six-week resident of Harlem. OFFSTAGE CHARACTERS who play key roles in the action of the play: Langston Hughes (1902-1967) was a poet, columnist, activist, and leading figure of the Harlem Renaissance. At the time of the play, in 1930, Hughes was 28 years old, and very popular. That year, his first novel Not Without Laughter was published, earning the Harmon Gold Medal for Literature. He is celebrated for such poems as “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” and “A Dream Deferred.” Josephine Baker (1906-1975) was an American-born dancer, singer, actress, and activist who emigrated to France. According to her official website, “Famous for barely-there dresses and no-holds-barred dance routines, her exotic beauty generated nicknames "Black Venus," "Black Pearl" and "Creole Goddess.’ “ She assisted the French Resistance during World War II, and became an activist in the American Civil Rights Movement, refusing to perform for segregated audiences in the United States and speaking alongside Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King at the March on Washington in 1963. At the time of the play, she was the toast of the Paris nightclub scene. Langston Hughes, in a photo taken by Carl Van Vechten in 1936; Josephine Baker, at the Folies Bergère in Paris Adam Clayton Powell, Sr. (1865-1953) was the founder and pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, which had 10,000 members at its peak and was the largest Protestant congregation in the country. He helped to found the National Urban League and was a trustee of numerous historically black colleges and schools. Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. (1908-1972) was a member of the United States Congress, representing the Harlem neighborhood of New York City. As a young man, he followed in his father’s footsteps as pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church. From the 1930’s through the 1960’s, he progressed from being a vocal advocate for voting rights, housing and jobs for African Americans to being one of the most influential and controversial politicians on the national scene. At the time of the play, he was a recent college graduate – young, attractive, and the son of a prominent and wealthy Harlem family. Margaret Sanger (1879-1966) was a nurse, educator and activist in the field of family planning. She opened the first birth control clinic in the U.S. in 1916, helped to legalize contraception in the United States, and founded organizations that eventually became Planned Parenthood of America. Richard Bruce Nugent (1906-1987) was a writer, painter and popular personality of the Harlem Renaissance. Though there were many homosexual artists and performers in Harlem at the time, Nugent was one of few who openly proclaimed his homosexuality. He is the ‘Bruce’ whose parties the characters attend in the play. OFFSTAGE CHARACTERS who are referred to but play no role in the action: Booker T. Washington (1856-1915) was an author, educator and public speaker, founder of the Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, which later became Tuskegee University. He was sometimes criticized for his conciliatory tone, which accepted a certain degree of racial subservience. Marcus Garvey (1887-1940) was a Jamaican-born speaker and activist who advocated for African Americans to return to their ancestral homeland in Africa. He founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association, a Black Nationalist organization, and several companies to assist blacks wishing to emigrate. Garvey was revered as a visionary by some in the Civil Rights Movement, and denounced by others as a traitor to the Negro cause. At the time of the play, having been expelled from the United States on legal grounds, Garvey was an elected councilor in his native Jamaica. Booker T. Washington, Marcus Garvey, John D. Rockefeller, and Fats Waller John D. Rockefeller (1839-1937) was a wealthy American business leader and philanthropist. Through Standard Oil, which he co-founded, and the fortune he derived from it, he helped to shape both the American oil industry and the practice of corporate charity. Fats Waller (1904-1943) was a popular jazz musician and comedy performer, and a forerunner of modern jazz piano. His signature songs included “Ain’t Misbehavin’”, “The Sunny Side of the Street,” “I Can’t Give You Anything but Love, Baby” and “Honeysuckle Rose.” FROM HARLEM TO TUSKEGEE: Where it all happens The play is set in an apartment building in Harlem, where Guy Jacobs and Angel Allen share an apartment, and across the hall Delia Patterson lives alone. Both apartments are visible to the audience, and the action moves back and forth between them, with occasional scenes occurring on the street below their windows. Through the characters’ comings and goings, and the places they describe, Cleage evokes the world of 1930 Harlem far beyond the tow apartments’ walls. In 1930, Harlem was a lively and cultured place, day and night. The Harlem Renaissance, which is the period of the 1920’s and 1930’s when African American culture, centered in Harlem, blossomed through the exuberant proliferation of poetry, dance, theatre, music, visual art and a vibrant night life, was in full swing. The characters in the play refer to nightclubs, churches, avenues and other locales that have become legendary in the history of the era. A Night-Club Map of Harlem, by African American cartoonist Elmer Sims Campbell, first published in Manhattan Magazine in 1932 The Cotton Club was opened by boxer Jack Johnson in 1920 at 142nd St. and Lenox Ave. When Johnson had trouble maintaining it, the club was sold to gangster Owney Madden in 1923 (while he was in prison), and turned into a whites-only venue where the elite came to see the finest African American performers. Regular favorites included Cab Calloway, Ethel Waters, Duke Ellington, and Lena Horne. The Savoy Ballroom was a venue on Lenox Ave. at 141st Street that opened in 1926. It was famed as the home of the Lindy Hop, a popular dance. Unlike many other clubs, the Savoy was integrated: blacks and whites freely and openly socialized, drank, and danced together. Two bands played every night, and in the 1930’s they would engage in a competition, with the winner decided by the audience. Hamilton Lodge was a well-known venue on 155th St, north of Harlem’s central cultural district. It was the site of drag balls, where both men and women cross- dressed. The Hamilton Lodge Ball was New York’s signature drag ball, and attracted up to 8,000 people at its height.
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