Pearl Cleage

Playwright Biography

(taken from website )

Pearl Cleage is an Atlanta based writer whose work has won commercial acceptance and critical praise in several genres. An award winning playwright whose Flyin' West was the most produced new play in the country in 1994, Pearl is also a best selling author whose first novel, What Looks Like Crazy On An Ordinary Day, was an Oprah Book Club pick and spent nine weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. Her subsequent novels have been consistent best sellers and perennial book club favorites. I Wish I Had A Red Dress, her second novel, won multiple book club awards in 2001. Some Things I Never Thought I'd Do, was a "Good Morning America!" book club pick in 2003, and Babylon Sisters made the ESSENCE Magazine best seller list in 2005. Her most recent novel, Baby Brother's Blues, was the first pick of the new ESSENCE Book Club and an NAACP Image Award winner for fiction in 2007. In the March 2007 issue of ESSENCE, Pearl had two books on the best seller list, Baby Brother's Blues and We Speak Your Names, a poetic celebration commissioned by Oprah Winfrey and co-authored with her husband, writer Zaron W. Burnett, Jr. The poem was also an NAACP Image Award nominee in 2007. Pearl was a popular columnist with The Atlanta Tribune for ten years and has contributed as a free lance writer to ESSENCE, Ms., Rap Pages, VIBE and Ebony. Her recent play, A Song for Coretta, played to sold out audiences during its Atlanta premiere in February of 2007 and will be produced at Atlanta's Seven Stages Theatre in February of 2008 in preparation for a national tour.

Pearl's work occupies a unique niche in contemporary African American fiction. Her characters are as complex and multi-faceted as her readers lives and their balancing of work, love and family (not necessarily in that order!) ring true to those who eagerly await each novel. She balances issues as challenging as AIDS, domestic violence and urban blight, but the distinguishing features of her books are her optimism, her commitment to positive change and transformation, and her unwavering faith in the possibility and power of romantic love. The creation of good, believable, desirable men -- as well as the women who love them! -- is a hallmark of Pearl's fiction and her readers are quick to mention their fondness for Eddie Jefferson, the dread locked hero of What Looks Like Crazy On An Ordinary Day, Nate Anderson, the weight lifting high school principal in I Wish I Had a Red Dress, Burghardt Johnson, the globetrotting journalist in Babylon Sisters, or their all time favorite, the mysterious Blue Hamilton, a former R&B singer turned neighborhood godfather,who is at the center of both Baby Brother's Blues and Some Things I Never Thought I'd Do, where his character is first introduced. This character, with his amazing blue eyes and remembrance of past lives, not only keeps the peace, but falls deeply in love and isn't afraid to show it. His relationship with Regina Burns is at the heart of both books and has made him one of Pearl's most popular characters.

Pearl is married to Zaron W. Burnett, Jr., with whom she frequently collaborates. She has one daughter, Deignan, and two grandchildren, Chloe and Michael

Highlighted Play:

Flyin' West

Synopsis: The Dove sisters, Sophie and Fannie, have made their way west and settled on a homestead just outside the all black town of Nicodemus, Kansas. They are trying to grow their crops as well as their lives, along with neighbor and matriarch Ms. Leah and the gentle yet worldly Will Parrish, when their youngest sister Minnie arrives for a visit with her self-hating husband,Frank. After losing the battle for his inheritance from his former slave owner father’s estate, Frank turns his hatred outward towards his wife. With a baby on the way and the sister’s land at stake, Ms. Leah takes matters into her own hands by getting rid of the problem…Frank.

Sample Audience: This play is suited for a wide range of ages. Because of some violent content, it would be best for upper middle school 7th or 8th grade through high school. College age students would find a wealth of material, topics, and characters to connect with. The play lends itself to the Drama classroom and to Social Studies/History classes.

How this play can be used: This play is definitely an entry point into a historical lesson about the American West, migration, Jim Crow laws, and the lives of Black people post-Emancipation. This is also a gem of a script to study character, dialogue, plot structure and storytelling.

Suggested Activity: Town hall meeting

After having read the full script:

  • In small groups, students will create a map of the town of Nicodemus, KS. They will lay out all the parts of the town as they might imagine them to be, including the nearby train station where they meet Minnie and Frank, Ms. Leah’s land, the homestead of the Dove sisters, nearby neighbors, etc.
  • Have students create roles for town folks that may or may not be mentioned in the script (this could include speculators). Or you could have these roles already created on slips of paper to save time (have roles pre-developed for younger grades).
  • Hold a town meeting where the town’s people are voting to create a bylaw that states that in order to sell your land to outsiders you much first come before the town and have it approved.
  • Post discussion processing and topics could include: gentrification; inclusion and exclusion; modern day co-op; housing in general.

Discussion Questions:

1. What are some of the themes that can be found within the play? Which themes did you find most interesting and why?

2. What role does storytelling have within this play? Why do you think Ms. Cleage chose to include storytelling in this work?

3. Why do you think Fannie is so forgiving of Frank and his behavior toward her sisters, particularly Minnie?

4. Domestic violence is one role that is prevalent within the story. What is the impact of this issue on the overall story?

5. How has your previous knowledge of the western migration and post-emancipation era America influenced your reading of the play?

6. Do you think the ending is believable? Why or why not?

7. Discuss the merits of this play being labeled a melodrama – both positive and negative.

8. How does the idea of speculators trying to buy land in and around the town (of Nicodemus, KS) liken itself to modern day gentrification?



Additional Plays


Blues for an Alabama Sky

Synopsis: Set in the 1930’s during the great depression. A group of Harlem residents find themselves trying to make sense of the world around them and its ever changing landscape. When main character, Angel, is jilted by her gangster boyfriend and fired from her showgirl job she sets out to find her next great thing. Enter upstanding and very conservative Leland, new to Harlem and the “fast paced” city life of song and drink, who turns his nostalgia for his dead wife into a love for Angel. When Angel’s best friend, Guy, finally gets the word from Paris and Josephine Baker that his career as a costume designer is about to take off, Angel enlists the help of his good friend Dr. Sam to abort Leland’s baby, leaving her free to follow along. Unfortunately, all pay the price for Angel’s choices.

How this play can be used: This play is another entry point for a historical lesson. The Harlem Renaissance, The Great Depression, Woman’s rights, abortion, birth control, and the general lives of the more affluent Black residents of Harlem are but a few of the themes that can be launched through this play.


The Late Bus to Mecca

Synopsis: Two women meet late at night in a bus station. One is on her way to Atlanta, the black mecca, where she believes she can get a leg up in life if only she can get there for the big Mohammad Ali fight. The other is completely silent throughout the play. In one’s silence and the other’s chatter about her past and present, the two find they have more in common than anyone would have thought. In the end, they form an unlikely friendship and travel together on the late bus to mecca.

How this play can be used: This play is a great study in character as well as monologue. Essentially, the entire piece is one long monologue juxtaposed with the silent but present character of (ABW - A Black Woman), demonstrating the strength of acting without words. This could also be used in a theatre class charting one character's arc throughout a play as both characters display clear shifts in thinking and consciousness as each scene progresses.

Comprehensive list of Work

Plays

Puppetplay (1981)

Hospice (1983)

Chain (1992)

Flyin’ West (1992)

Late Bus to Mecca (1992)

Blues for an Alabama Sky (1995)

Bourbon at the Border (1997)

A Song for Coretta (2007)

The Love Project (2007)

What I Learned in Paris (2012)

The Nacirema Society Requests the Honor of Your Presence at a Celebration of Their One Hundred Years (2013)

Pointing at the Moon (2017)


Books

Fiction:

The Brass Bed and Other Stories (1991)

What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day (1997)

I Wish I had a Red Dress (2001)

Some Things I Never Thought I’d Do (2003)

Babylon Sisters: A Novel (2005)

Baby Brother’s Blues (2006)

Seen It All and Done the Rest (2008)

Till You Hear From Me (2010)

Just Wanna Testify (2011)


Non Fiction:

Mad at Miles: A Black Woman’s Guide to Truth (1990)

Deals with the Devil and Other Reasons to Riot (1993)

Things I Should Have Told My Daughter: Lies, Lessons and Love Affairs (2014 )


Additional Resources

Bibliography

  • Brock, Wendell. Back to Alabama with Cleage and Baldwin. American Theatre. Oct2010, Vol. 27 Issue 8, p124-126. 3p
  • Elman, R. (summer 2011). Playwright Pearl Cleage Takes a Stand Against Censorship. Southern Theatre,52(3), 6-8.
  • Giles, F. S. (1997). The Motion of Herstory: Three Plays by Pearl Cleage. African American Review,31(4), 709.
  • McKoy, Sheila Smith (ed. and introd.); Critical Perspectives on Pearl Cleage. Obsidian III: Literature in the African Diaspora, 2009 Spring-Summer; 10 (1): 7-97.
  • Turner, Beth. pp. 99-114 IN: Kolin, Philip C. (ed. and introd.) Contemporary African American Women Playwrights. London, England: Routledge; 2007. ix, 207 pp. (book article)
  • Vijayalakshmi, N.; Jose, S.Man, 2017. From troubled waters to greener pastures: A reading of Pearl Cleage’s Flyin West. 97(10):153-162.
  • Julius NovickJulius Novick . Words About the Ravages of Life. Newsday (Melville, NY) , March 21, 1992 PART II NASSAU AND SUFFOLK, p. 23 3pp.
  • Pearl Cleage’s The Nigger Speech. Southern Theatre. Summer2011, Vol. 52 Issue 3, p9-16. 8p.
  • Francis, Aisha. In Search of Free Womanhood: Black Conduct Literature, Obsidian , Spring/Summer2009, Vol. 10 Issue 1, p32-49, 18p
  • George, Lynell. ‘We Are Being Beaten’, Turning Up the Volume on Painful Issues, Pearl Cleage Pushes Women to Stop Racism, Sexism. Los Angeles Times, August 30, 1993 View Home Edition, 7pp

Web page compiled by T. L. Swopes (2017)