Pearl Cleage is an African-American writer. She is a novelist, an essayist, and a poet. She is a political activist writing and speaking out about racism and sexism. She is also a brilliant playwright who penned three remarkable plays in the 1990’s. Lantern Theater is presenting one of those, “Blues for an Alabama Sky,” on its intimate stage. It is a fascinating play about four people in Harlem in 1930 who are wrestling with financial hardships, sexuality, love, and dreams. It is most captivating.
We meet Angel (Ebony Pullum), a jazz singer, whose gangster boyfriend has left her and she was fired from her singing job. She moves in with her gay friend Guy (Cookie Diorio), a costume designer who seeks to move to Paris and design for Josephine Baker. Across the hall in the same apartment building is Delia (Taylor J. Mitchell), a social worker who wants to set up a family planning center in Harlem and believes it’s a woman’s right to choose whether or not to have a baby. And then there is Doctor Sam (Kash Goins), a friend to all. Into their lives comes Leland (Tariq Kanu), who’s recently arrived from Alabama. A most attractive man, he had just lost his wife and baby during childbirth and is smitten with Angel, who looks like his wife.
Cleage creates drama behind each of her characters. The most flamboyant is Guy, who is constantly commenting on the clothes of others in a most humorous way. The neighbor, Delia is struggling with a community that fights her in her goal to achieve birth control for women. Doc is without a partner and would love to make it with Delia. He has had lovers, but he wants love. At the beginning of the play, he has just arrived after delivering twins. He is exhausted after working such long hours but is a very good listener and a compassionate man.
Angel is the centerpiece of this tale. She is so frustrated. She seeks employment most anywhere for a while, but it is the depression, and work is hard to find. She just wants to sing again. But she also need money just to eat and pay part of the rent. When Leland arrives, he is smooth talking, he has money, and he wants her. What should she do?
It’s not an easy answer. At first, she overlooks his ultra-conservatism regarding women, but then, this rather religious man has issues with Guy’s sexuality. Guy is her best friend. More issues arise and decisions must be made that will affect them all.
This masterpiece, a work of historical fiction, where the characters are coming into contact (not on stage) with the likes of Josephine Baker, Langston Hughes, Adam Clayton Powell, Sr., and Margaret Sanger, is so believable, you’d swear it was an actual true story. Director Brett Ashley Robinson has done an outstanding job in putting together this complex play by Pearl Cleage!
“Blues for an Alabama Sky” by Pearl Cleage at Lantern Theater Company at St. Stephen’s Theater, 923 Ludlow St., Philadelphia, PA 19107. 215-829-0399 lanterntheater.org thru March 15, 2026
Philadelphia Theater Reviews by Frank Burd 