Flyin’ West
by Pearl Cleage
April 16-25, 2027
In 1870s America, some 50,000 African-Americans moved west in the Exoduster Migration. Flyin’ West tells the tales of 4 women who make a new life for their found family in Nicodemus, Kansas.
Facing problems ranging from the inevitability of long, cold winters, to the possibility of domestic violence, to the continuing specter of racial conflict, the women of Flyin’ West have their sisterhood tested in unexpected ways. Cleage’s play is an intimate portrait of family, enlarged with the dimensions of folk art and ancestral stories.
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ICTRep Ticket Policies
Performance Times and Location
April 16 & 17 @ 7:30 p.m.
April 18 @ 2:00 p.m.
April 23 & 24 @ 7:30 p.m.
April 25 @ 2:00 p.m.
Location TBA
Running Time: 2 hours and 30 minutes, including a 10 minute intermission.
Seating for this show is general admission. We can, however, reserve seats for those with mobility issues. Just email us at tickets@ictrep.org or call 316-612-2543 and let us know the date of your tickets and what kind of accommodations you will need (wheelchair seating, zero-step seating, etc.) and we will take care of it.
What to Expect
“A sweet anthem of a play… a paean to women… and a plea for all women with vibrant lives to tell their oral stories.”
New York Times
“A real crowd pleaser, and its characters have humor and vitality… Cleage [is] a natural-born storyteller.”
The New York Post
About Playwright Pearl Cleage
Pearl Cleage is an Atlanta-based playwright currently serving as Distinguished Artist in Residence at The Alliance Theatre. The recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Dramatists Guild, she is also Atlanta’s first Poet Laureate. Her plays include Flyin’ West, Blues for an Alabama Sky, The Nacirema Society…, What I Learned in Paris, and Angry, Raucous and Shamelessly Gorgeous. Her work is anthologized in Flyin’ West and Other Plays, published by Theatre Communications Group. In addition to the Alliance, Cleage has been widely produced, including performances at the Goodman Theatre, London’s National Theatre, the McCarter Theatre Center, Penumbra Theatre, Keen Company, Ford’s Theatre, the Huntington Theatre Company, the Guthrie Theater, Kenny Leon’s True Colors Theatre, Actor’s Express, the Black Repertory Company, the Old Globe, the Negro Ensemble Company, Arena Stage, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, the Ensemble Theatre, New Federal Theatre, and Actors Theatre of Louisville. Her work is widely taught and produced at colleges and universities across the country. She is also a performance artist working in collaboration with her husband, writer Zaron W. Burnett, Jr. Their groundbreaking performance work is the subject of a new documentary film Live at Club Zebra! directed by Matthew and David Adeboye. Cleage and Burnett also collaborated on In My Granny’s Garden, a book for young children, which was adapted for the stage by Rosemary Newcott and has been performed in Atlanta, Chicago, and St. Louis. The author of eight novels, including What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day, a New York Times bestseller, Cleage also co-authored with Burnett “We Speak Your Names,” a praise poem commissioned by Oprah Winfrey. She is currently at work on Off Day at Chickens, in collaboration with Burnett and a play with music, Letters from Aunt Nina, based on the music and memories of Simone’s niece, actor/singer Crystal Fox.