Great story telling in Flyin’ West

by Rob Howard
Associate Editor

Flyin’ Westis a warm humor filled family saga. It illuminates the rich history of a group of black homesteaders and explores the unique challenges they faced as pioneer women. “I really like the storytelling,” says Rodney Clark, Director of Tulsa’s Theatre North production of the play.

“My favorite character is Miss Leah, an elderly woman who tells her story about the African American experience,” Clark relates. We’ve been really focusing on the characters and how they tell stories.”

Set in Nicodemus Kansas, in 1898, Flyin’ West is an inspiring story of African American pioneers in the American West. Following the end of the Civil War, many former slaves, anxious to leave the South and the increasing disappointments and dangers of Reconstruction, took advantage of The Homestead Act and went west to build new lives for themselves and their families.

Many of these homesteaders were black women who overcame tremendous odds to work their own land and make a place for themselves in an often harsh and forbidding environment. Flyin' West by Pearl Cleage is the story of some of these African-American female pioneers who settled together in the all-black town of Nicodemus, Kansas.

“Nicodemus is an all-black town,” says Clark. “They are trying to establish the whole element of townhood, where they are all alone and have their own things, their own church, their own post office and so forth.”

Today, Nicodemus is the only remaining western town established by African Americans during the Reconstruction period following the Civil War and represents a largely untold story of the western expansion and settlement of the Great Plains. It is located in Northwest Kansas.

There are six members in the cast: Pam English, Sharon Louie, Annette Walker Austin, Angela Chalk, Lee Roach and Key-addraih Davis.

Playwright Pearl Cleage is an Atlanta based writer whose work has won commercial acceptance and critical praise in several genres. An award winning playwright whose Flyin' West was the most produced new play in the country in 1994, Cleage is also a bestselling author whose first novel, What Looks Like Crazy On An Ordinary Day, was an Oprah Book Club pick and spent nine weeks on the New York Timesbestseller list. Her subsequent novels have been consistent best sellers and perennial book club favorites.

Theatre North has been in existence for over 30 years, with Mabel Wallace as its executive director. It focuses on staging and presenting plays that reflect the African-American experience.

The Theatre North production of Flyin’ West is May 27 and June 2-3 in Tulsa Performing Arts Center’s Liddy Doenges Theatre. Tickets are $17, $15 for seniors and students and are available online at www.tulsapac.com, by phone at (918) 596-7111 or in person at the Tulsa PAC box office, 101 E. Third Street in downtown Tulsa.

Copyright 2017 The Gayly – May 25, 2017 @ 4:45 p.m.