Blues for an Alabama Sky
 

Department of Fine Arts
University Theatre presents:

Blues for an Alabama Sky
by Pearl Cleage

        directed by Professor Keith Best

        October 20-22, 2016
            7:30 pm Thursday - Saturday

        Fine Arts Theatre, Hyman Fine Arts Center


Blues for an Alabama Sky
Blues for an Alabama Sky - Fall 2016

The Francis Marion University Theatre's 2016-17 season will begin with Blues for an Alabama Sky.

THE STORY: 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, 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.

CAST
Delia
Sam
Angel  
Guy
Leland
Jazsmin Smith
Malcolm Parker
Arlene Upshur
Eric Squirewell, Jr.
Lahim Ballard



RESERVATIONS Due to recent weather and the closing of the University, we will not be taking reservations in our normal manner. The box office will open at 6:30 pm each evening and you may pick up a ticket for an assigned seat at that time. There is no cost for tickets.

The Francis Marion University Theatre's 2016-2017's winter production will be Blue Bird
, a new play by Liza Lentini, directed by professor L. Dawn Larsen. The spring production will be Always a Bridesmaid by Jessie Jones, Nicholas Hope and Jamie Wooten, directed by professor A. Glen Gourley.

For additional information contact Director of Theatre professor Glen Gourley in FAC 224, 661-1538, agourley@fmarion.edu.


Interested in working "behind the scenes"?  Contact Mr. Granath in FAC 222, 661-1536, dgranath@fmarion.edu.

Blues



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