doollee banner
The Playwrights Database
contact doollee


Pearl Cleage

PEARL CLEAGE

  (1948 - )
Nationality:    African American
facebook     twitter     email:    n/a     Website:    Click here

Literary Agent:    Abrams Artists Agency  

Pearl Cleage (born December 7, 1948) is an African-American author whose work, both fiction and non-fiction, has been widely recognized. Her novel What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day was a 1998 Oprah Book Club selection. Cleage is known for her feminist views, particularly regarding her identity as an African-American woman. Cleage teaches drama at Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_Cleage

Research:    Member of the Dramatists Guild of America (as at 2015)

Buy Plays with Doollee

Each page of doollee.com has links to play/book outlets, either directly to the Publisher, through Stageplays.com and Amazon to the second hand and 1st editions of AbeBooks. These links will automatically take you to the relevant area obviating the need for further search.
AbeBooks.co.uk   AbeBooks.com   Stageplays.com   amazon.com   amazon.co.uk   amazon.ca
whether you are a Playwright who wishes to make their entry definitive, an unlisted Playwright or a User with a tale to tell - we want to hear from you.
download WORD submission template

below is a list of Pearl Cleage's plays - click on a Play Title for more information

         Blues For An Alabama Sky         Bourbon At the Border         Chain         Essentials         Flyin' West         Good News         Hospice         Last Bus To Mecca         Nacirema Society Requests the Honor of Your Presence at a Celebration of Their First One Hundred Years, The         One For the Brothers, A Love Story         Puppetplay         Song For Coretta, A         What I Learned In Paris

Blues For An Alabama Sky

Synopsis:
It is the summer of 1930 in Harlem, New York. the creative euphoria of the Harlem Renaissance has given way to the harsher realities of the Great Depression. Young Reverend adam Clayton Powell, Jr., is feeding the hungry and preaching an activist gospel at abyssinian Baptist Church. Black Nationalist visionary, Marcus Garvey, has been discredited and deported. Birth control pioneer, Margaret Sanger, is opening a new family planning clinic on 126th Street, and the doctors at Harlem Hospital are scrambling to care for a population whose most deadly disease is poverty. the play brings together a rich cast of characters who reflect the conflicting currents of the time through their overlapping personalities and politics. Set in the Harlem apartment of Guy, a popular costume designer, and his friend, angel, a recently fired Cotton Club back-up singer, the cast also includes Sam, a hard-working, jazz-loving doctor at Harlem Hospital; Delia, an equally dedicated member of the staff at the Sanger clinic; and Leland,

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
American Theatre Magazine, NY - July, 1996   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama 150 min

Parts:
Male:  3            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page

Bourbon At the Border

Synopsis:
When May and Charlie joined hundreds of other Americans who went to Mississippi in the summer of 1964 for a massive voter registration drive, they had no idea their lives were about to change forever. as students at Howard University, their campus activism had been met with calls to their parents and threats of expulsion. the stakes in Mississippi were a lot higher. White supremacists, outraged at the challenge to their segregated way of life, responded with violence that left three civil rights workers dead and many wounded. Years later, May and Charlie are still searching for a way back from the damage that was done to them during that long ago Freedom Summer. Unable to confide even in her best friend, Rosa, about the demons that haunt her dreams and twist Charlie's love for her into something she can no longer recognize, May is convinced that if she can just get Charlie to leave Detroit and cross the bridge to Canada, they can start a new life. But when Rosa's friend Tyrone gets Charlie a job as a truck driver, the madness of that summer bubbles over until it threatens all of their very lives. BOURBON aT the BORDeR takes a look at the lives of two ordinary people who gave everything they had to the African-American freedom struggle but who have now been largely forgotten. In telling May and Charlie's story, BOURBON aT the BORDeR puts a human face on the unknown soldiers of the civil rights movement by refusing to romanticize them even as it honors their specific sacrifices and the price they paid.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    -

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY, 2006   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Drama, full length Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page

Chain

Synopsis:
This play by Pearl Cleage tells the tale of a sixteen-year-old crack addict, Rosa Jackson, whose parents take matters into their own hands. their solution: to keep their daughter chained inside their home for seven days. In this desperate attempt to keep their daughter away from drugs and the violence of their Harlem community, Rosa teeters between discovering her self worth, the admiration for her boyfriend, Jesus, who introduced her to the drug, and the reality of her addiction. This not only explores "urban" violence and the impact of drugs on the African American community but the effects of peer pressure and how far parents will go to protect their children.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Judith Anderson Theatre, NY    1992

Organisations:
Women's Project

1st Published:
Contained in: ""Playwriting Women: Seven Plays From the Women's Project" published by Heinemann 1993   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
One act

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  3            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page

Essentials

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    1984

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page

Flyin' West

Synopsis:
Following the end of the Civil War, many former slaves, anxious to leave the South and the increasing disappointments and dangers of Reconstruction, took advantage of the Homestead act and went West to build new lives for themselves and their families. Many of these homesteaders were black women who overcame tremendous odds to work their own land and make a place for themselves in an often harsh and forbidding environment. Set in 1898, FLYIN' WeST is the story of some of these African-American female pioneers who settled, together, in the all-black town of Nicodemus, Kansas. "Pearl Cleage's FLYIN' WeST. . .[is] a real crowed pleasure, and its characters have humor and vitality. . .Cleage [is] a natural-born storyteller. . ." -Washington Post. "Pearl Cleage's FLYIN' WeST is a broadly rendered. . .sweet anthem of a play, celebrating, as one character. . .says to a newborn infant, "all them fine colored women makin' a place for you." -NY Times. "FLYIN' WeST is the most potent, gripping play. . .a paean to women. . .and a plea for all women

Notes:
-

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
in "Contemporary Plays by Women of Color" Routledge, London, 1996   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  2            Female:  4            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page

Good News

Synopsis:
A feuding couple

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    1984

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page

Hospice

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    1983

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page

Last Bus To Mecca

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Judith Anderson Theatre, NY    1992

Organisations:
Women's Project

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
One act

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  3            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page

Nacirema Society Requests the Honor of Your Presence at a Celebration of Their First One Hundred Years, The

Synopsis:
In the winter of 1964, ten years after the Montgomery bus boycott, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., is planning a massive voter registration drive that promises to put the city back at the center of the Civil Rights Movement. Among those watching closely is Grace Dunbar, pillar of Montgomery's African-American aristocrats and doyenne of the Nacirema Society, an organization poised to celebrate its 100th anniversary by presenting an exclusive group of debutantes at their annual cotillion. Assisting Grace is her lifelong friend, Catherine, who hopes the cotillion will prompt her grandson to propose to Grace's granddaughter. Of course, neither woman considers the fact that their grandchildren have their own plans. The anticipation is overshadowed by the arrival of Alpha Campbell, daughter of the Dunbar family's late maid. Alpha has plans to blackmail the Dunbars into financing her own daughter's education. But Alpha's story is closer to the truth than anyone could have imagined, and Alpha is surprised. So is Janet Logan, a visiting reporter from the New York Times who finds herself in the middle of a story that Grace will do anything to suppress.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
Ensemble Theatre, Houston, Tx    -

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, Inc   978-0822229520

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
comedy

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  8            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page

One For the Brothers, A Love Story

Synopsis:
a love story set during the turbulent 60?s & 70?s when revolution was the norm.

Notes:
the ensemble Studio theatre And Going to the River have lined up some of the most gifted women playwrights of color - some new, some established - for A three-week presentation of nine short, under 10-minute plays in return of the series the River Crosses Rivers. the River Crosses Rivers II mixes established playwrights like Pearl Cleage And Regina Taylor with emerging playwrights France-Luce Benson, Christine Jean Chambers, Naveen Bahar Choudhury, Philana Omorotionmwan, Desi Moreno-Penson, Bridgette Wimberly And Cori Thomas.

1st Produced:

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
short play

Parts:
Male:  1            Female:  2            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page

Puppetplay

Synopsis:
-

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    1981

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page

Song For Coretta, A

Synopsis:
On February 6, 2006, people began lining up at dawn outside of Atlanta's ebenezer Baptist Church to pay their respects to the late Mrs. Coretta Scott King, widow of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., whose body lay in state in the small sanctuary. By mid-morning, the crowd wound down the street and around the corner of the old red brick building. People of all ages stood patiently for hours, waiting to say goodbye. Sometimes they murmured to each other quietly. Sometimes they shared memories of Mrs. King's extraordinary life and expressed sorrow at her passing. When a cold rain began to fall at sunset, those who had thought to bring umbrellas shared them with those whose resolve was the only thing not dampened by the drizzle. at close to midnight, the crowd had dwindled to a determined few. the five fictional characters in this play are at the end of that long line of mourners.

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    -

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
Dramatists Play Service, NY, 2008   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Play/Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  5            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page

What I Learned In Paris

Synopsis:
Members of the campaign team for Maynard Jackson - the first Afro-American mayor in the US.. Maynard's right hand man - J P Madison's wife Ann is having an affair with John Maynard's protege

Notes:
-

1st Produced:
-    -

Organisations:
-

1st Published:
-   -

Music:
-

To Buy This Play:
If Publisher (above) is underlined then the play may be purchased by direct click from the Publisher, otherwise (below) are AbeBooks for secondhand, signed & 1st eds and other Booksellers for new copies

Booksellers:

Genre:
Drama

Parts:
Male:  -            Female:  -            Other:  -

Further Reference:
-

Top of Page Top of Page