Flyin' West

Facing problems ranging from the inevitability of long, cold winters, to the possibility of domestic violence, to the continuing spectra of racial conflict, the women of Flyin West include Miss Leah, the old woman whose memories of slavery and its aftermath comprise a living oral history; Sophie Washington, whose determination to protect her land and those she loves puts to rest forever the requirement that western archetypes be white and male; Fannie Mae Dove, the gentle sister, trying to civilize the frontier with fine china and roses, who finds herself falling in love with their soft-spoken neighbor, Wil Parish; and Minnie Dove Charles, the headstrong baby sister whose mulatto husband, Frank, introduces a danger into the household that tests their sisterhood in unexpected ways

"Pearl Cleage's Flyin' West[is] a real crowed pleasure, and its characters have humor and vitalityCleage [is] a natural-born storyteller" ~ Washington Post

"Pearl Cleage's Flyin' West is a broadly renderedsweet anthem of a play, celebrating, as one charactersays to a newborn infant, "all them fine colored women makin' a place for you" ~ NY Times

"Flyin' West is the most potent, gripping playa paean to womenand a plea for all women with vibrant lives to tell their oral stories" ~ NY Times