Blues for an Alabama Sky
By Pearl Cleage

The Characters
Lester Young (Benjamin Cain, Jr.)
Woman in Black, White Marie (Cahternie Friesen)
Sarah, Agatha (Sala James)
Tuta, Mrs. Slump (Tasha Michelle)
Booboo, Swoop, Mouse (Franklin John Westbrooks)
Miss Lady, Lady Day (Karla Washington)
Exhorter, Dr. Tramb, Manager, Major
(Kack Goodstein)
Voice, Pooky, Tweed, Sargeant (Derrick L. Sanders)
Grand Marshall, Lincoln (Monn Washington)

Director's Notes
Jazz tells a critical part of the story of African American people. In The Resurrection of Lady Lester, Oyamo's poetic mood song based on the life of innovative jazz saxophonist Lester Young, that story is one of a continual quest for liberation in the face of unspeakable indignities. For Lester Young, and so many other musicians, music is the space of freedom -- of breaking with traditions meant to enslave and limit while embracing the life affirming polyrhythmic and improvisational qualities of the oldest music known to African descended people.

"I've been resurrected from the land of the true living harmony/where God sings in everybody's soul" Oyamo's Lester tells us. For a people arising from the hell of bondage, resurrection is a powerful image. For a man like Lester Young, who soared above other musicians with his light airy sound, yet died the haunted death of alcoholism, resurrection resides in that "true living harmony," in the celebration of life he left for us all in his music.

As Kuntu celebrates the Harlem Renaissance, a period of artistic flowering and racial pride in the early 20th century, this play reminds us of the centrality of jazz in this period and in the development of American culture. Jazz is the spirit of invention and resistance which continues to emanate from the pain of our shared American past and point us toward Oyamo's vision of "floating ribbons of soft color sounds/stretched out forever, traveling through everything alive and dead/And loving us into One Holiness."

The structure of the piece is informed by Young's musical style, which broke most conventions in an easy, laid-back virtuosity that used rhythm but was not dominated by it, and the mysterious nature of memories, which are not bound by traditional dramaturgical considerations. The entire piece is designed to flow like music across the stage, but it is not to be simply another black revue.

The language of this play is an extension, of sorts, of Lester's linguistic inventions, but actors should not get hung up on attempting to recite "poetry." They should simply speak the words with the passion of ordinary dialogue. If the character is achieved, the words will speak for themselves. There is much-intended humor in this piece, which should be consciously played to balance against the tragic aspects of Young's brief life. A lexicon of jazz argot could be helpful for those words, which might not be understood in context.