For the smart and free-thinking, Black Market Reads is a podcast featuring conversations with today's most exciting Black literary voices. We are a podcast for any one who loves to read, write, and engage. Black Market Reads is a project of The Givens Foundation for African American Literature.
“We sit in the dark around the campfire and we listen to someone tell us the stories of our tribe, and we’ve been doing that as humans forever…
And you can call it theater, call it film, call it whatever. We have to, there’s no other way to know what’s important, what’s beautiful, what’s courageous, what’s brave, what’s all of those things, except through the stories that we tell about each other.”
In this episode Lissa talks with playwright and author Pearl Cleage about Blues for an Alabama Sky, her current work and references to inspirations and influencers including Langston Hughes, Stacey Abrams, Ntozake Shange, Viola Davis, audience development and more.
GO DEEPER
Blues for an Alabama Sky is on stage at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis through March 12, 2023
“The story is set in 1930, but it isn’t about 1930. It’s about truth and honorand love and fear and friendship, topics which don’t grow old. Writersare always writing about the complexities of being human. Time andplace are merely the specific backdrops in which we chose to placeour explorations. If we get it right about the people, the question ofrelevance is moot.”
Weary Blues by Langston Hughes. Langston is referenced frequently in Blues for an Alabama Sky. In this episode, Lissa includes a 1958 recording of Langston Hughes reciting Weary Blues with jazz accompaniment. Read the text here.
InBlues for an Alabama Sky a large portrait of Josephine Baker hangs center stage, inspiration for the character of costume designer Guy, and his ticket to freedom.
EXPLORE
Pearl Cleage is an African-American playwright, essayist, novelist, poet and political activist. She is currently the Playwright in Residence at the Alliance Theatre and at the Just Us Theater Company. Cleage is a political activist. She tackles issues at the crux of racism and sexism, and is known for her feminist views, particularly regarding her identity as an African-American woman.
“I did not think it was going to move me the way that it has. It is just an amazing book about an artist’s journey about a black woman surviving, it’s a wonderful book. “
