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Blues For An Alabama Sky


  • Morgan State University - Murphy Fine Arts Center 2201 Argonne Drive Baltimore, MD, 21218 United States (map)

Performances: Mar 1 at 10am, Mar 2 at 7:30pm, Mar 3 at 2pm and 7:30pm, Mar 4 at 3pm

Blues for an Alabama Sky is set in Harlem, New York, in 1930, at a time when, as novelist and playwright Pearl Cleage states, "The creative euphoria of the Harlem Renaissance has given way to the harsher realities of the Great Depression." 

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, a recent transplant from Tuskegee, who sees in Angel a memory of lost love and a reminder of those "Alabama skies where the stars are so thick it's bright as day." Invoking the image of African-American expatriate extraordinaire, Josephine Baker as both muse and myth, Cleage's characters struggle, as Guy says, "to look beyond 125th Street" for the fulfillment of their dreams.