As a woman, as an African-American, her artistic objectivity and sensitivity to history combine with, but do not overshadow, her capacity to dig for truth and present it flat out as she sees it – with a finger snap or a shout and sometimes with a wink. Among the most satisfying roles I’ve undertaken on stage is surely Miss Leah in Flyin’ West. She brings the bushel nuggets of drama and humor that capture the ear, the heart and the imagination. She’s devilish, too.” –Academy Award® Nominee Ruby Dee“Ms. Cleage writes with amazing grace and killer instinct.” –Alvin Klein, New York Times “Pearl Cleage is a brilliant storyteller. I am always engrossed in the drama and compassion she brings to her characters. Flyin’ West, Bourbon at the Border, Blues for an Alabama Sky, Late Bus to Mecca and Chain are marvelous examples of a playwright at the top of her form, bravely moving into the new century.” –Woodie King, Jr., Producing Director, New Federal TheatrePearl Cleage’s body of work for the stage provides us with a remarkable and penetrating look at the African-American experience over the last 100 years. This volume collects her major full-length plays and one-acts, including Flyin’ West, Blues for an Alabama Sky, Bourbon at the Border, Chain and Late Bus to Mecca.PEARL CLEAGE is an Atlanta-based writer whose recent plays have premiered at The Alliance Theatre Company with subsequent productions throughout the country. Her first novel What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day was a recent Oprah’s Book Club Selection and a national bestseller. She is a former columnist of the Atlanta Tribune and a contributor to Essence Magazine.

    Closer to home, though, language is failing him. He doesn't know what to say to his wife, Mary, to keep her from leaving him, and he doesn't recognize the deep feelings that his lab assistant, Emma, has for him.

    When the patriarch of the Weston clan disappears one hot summer night, the family reunites at the Oklahoma homestead, where long-held secrets are unflinchingly and uproariously revealed. The three-act, three-and-a-half-hour mammoth of a play combines epic tragedy with black comedy, dramatizing three generations of unfulfilled dreams and leaving not one of its thirteen characters unscathed.

    

    It received four Drama Desk Award nominations, including Outstanding New American Play. The 1983 revival was nominated for the Tony Award, Best Reproduction & the Drama Desk Award, Outstanding Actor in a Play (Pacino). In 1976 the play won an Obie Award for best new play.

    This collection includes the revised and updated translations by Paul Roche of the Oedipus cycle, Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone, as well as all-new translations of Ajax, The Women of Trachis, Electra, and Philocetes.

    It premiered in London, in 1980 and won the Society for West End Theatres (SWET) award for Best Comedy of the Year. It was made into a highly successful film with Michael Caine and Julie Walters and won the 1983 BAFTA award for Best Film.Commentary and notes by Steve Lewis.

    With unparalleled intensity, Euripides, whom Aristotle called the most tragic of poets, describes the horrific brutality that both women and children undergo during war. Yet, in the war's aftermath, this brutality is challenged and a new battleground is revealed where the women of Troy evince an overwhelming greatness of spirit.We weep for the aged Hecuba in her name play and in Trojan Women, while at the same time we admire her resilience amid unrelieved suffering. Andromache, the slave-concubine of her husband's killer, endures her existence in the victor's country with a stoic nobility. Of their time yet timeless, these plays insist on the victory of the female spirit amid the horrors visited on them by the gods and men during war.

    The Story: Andrew Rally seems to have it all: celebrity and acclaim from his starring role in a hit television series; a rich, beautiful girlfriend; a glamorous, devoted agent; the perfect New York apartment; and the chance to play Hamlet in Central Park. There are, however, a couple of glitches in paradise. Andrew's series has been canceled; his girlfriend is clinging to her virginity with unyielding conviction; and he has no desire to play Hamlet. When Andrew's agent visits him, she reminisces about her brief romance with John Barrymore many years ago, in Andrew's apartment. This prompts a seance to summon his ghost. From the moment Barrymore returns, dressed in high Shakespearean garb, Andrew's life is no longer his own. Barrymore, fortified by champagne and ego, presses Andrew to accept the part and fulfill his actor's destiny. The action becomes more hilarious with the entrance of Andrew's deal-making friend from LA, spouting the laid-back hype of the Coast and offering Andrew a fabulous new TV deal worth millions of dollars. The laughs are nonstop as Andrew wrestles with his conscience, Barrymore, his sword, and the fact that he fails as Hamlet in Central Park.