Unfinished Women Cry in No Man’s Land While a Bird Dies in a Gilded Cage
Play Description
UNFINISHED WOMEN deals with the events in a home for unwed mothers on the last day of jazz musician Charlie Parker’s life, March 12, 1955. The play digs beyond statistics and sociological theories to find the unarticulated, half-understood longings of teenage mothers.
Production Info
Cast: 9 total (7 female, 2 male)Full Length Drama (about 90 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
- Reviews
- About the Author(s)
- About the Book
- Special Notes
- Productions
Press Quotes
“UNFINISHED WOMEN is an underground classic. It reaches beyond statistics and sociological theories to find the unarticulated, half-understood longings of teen-age mothers … The title implies the central conceit of the play: the juxtaposition of the Hide-A-Wee Home for Unwed Mothers (the unfinished women) and Pasha’s boudoir, where Charlie Parker (the ‘Bird’), the brilliant black saxophonist of years past, spent his last days. Many types of girls find themselves in this home: the child of middle-class upbringing who got ‘caught’; the innocent who was raped; the savvy, street-smart girl who let the music make love to her, as well as the strict nurse who turned her illegitimate child into a ‘niece.’ Charlie Chan, that stereotype of Oriental inscrutability, presides over all, a comment on the power of images in our society. The play focuses on that moment when the girls must decide whether to keep their babies or to give them up for adoption. Despite their fantasies of rescue by ‘caring’ young fathers, they must decide alone. Meanwhile, Bird slowly dies in the plush boudoir of his longtime mistress, trapped in a narcotic fog and the lost dreams of his exploited talent.” —From Margaret B Wilkerson’s introduction to the play in 9 Plays by Black Women
Author(s)
Aishah RahmanAishah Rahman was born in Harlem on November 4, 1936 and died December 29, 2014 in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. An accomplished playwright and author, Aishah was a Professor of Literary Arts and taught at Brown from 1992 – 2011. A graduate of Howard University and Goddard College, Rahman, along with Amiri Baraka, Larry Neal, Sonia Sanchez, and others was active in the 1960's Black Arts Movement. She described her writing as adhering to a "jazz aesthetic" and was the author of numerous plays, including the dramas UNFINISHED WOMEN CRY IN NO MAN'S LAND WHILE A BIRD DIES IN GILDED CAGE, THE MOJO AND THE SAYSO, ONLY IN AMERICA, CHIAROSCURO and three plays with music, LADY DAY A MUSICAL TRAGEDY, THE TALE OF MADAME ZORA and HAS ANYBODY SEEN MARIE LAVEAU? Her plays were produced at the Public Theatre, Ensemble Theatre, BAM and theaters and universities across the United States. She served as director of playwriting at the New Federal Theater in New York. Among her numerous fellowships, grants and awards are a special citation from the Rockefeller Foundation of the Arts for dedication to playwriting in the American Theater. Her plays are distributed by Broadway Play Publishing. Chewed Water: A Memoir, the story of growing up in Harlem in the 1940s and '50s, was published in 2001 by University of New England Press.
Book Information
| Publisher | BPPI |
|---|---|
| Publication Date | 12/21/2011 |
| Pages | 40 |
| ISBN | 9780881454895 |
Special Notes
If original stage producers credits appear in bold below, all licensees are required to include them in the following form on the title page in all programs distributed in connection with performances of the Play and in all advertising in which the full cast appears in size of type not less than ten percent (10%) of the size of the title of the Play:
First produced by The New York Shakespeare Festival
In addition, the following must appear within all programs distributed in connection with performances of the Play:
by special arrangement with Broadway Play Publishing Inc, NYC
www.broadwayplaypub.com
Upcoming and Recent Productions
Nonprofessional
Related Plays
$15.00–$15.95
Play Description
SINCE AFRICA chronicles the relationship between a Dinka refugee from Southern Sudan and three Americans — a North Shore socialite, her daughter, and an African American Deacon — who help him acclimate to Chicago’s unfamiliar urban surroundings. A look at American culture through the eyes of an African, this play explores the tensions between blacks and whites, Africans and African Americans, the devout and the non-religious.
Production Info
Cast: 5 total (3 female, 2 male, multiethnic cast)Full Length Drama (about 120 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00
Play Description
Set in a black barbershop in Arkansas, 1955, WEST MEMPHIS MOJO sings the unsung heroes of the blues tradition. A young songwriter, working as a shoeshine boy, collaborates with the shop owner and a small-time recording artist to create new blues tunes. Amidst racial tensions and the politics of the white-owned music industry, this play explodes with the conflicts surrounding each character's pursuit of the American dream.
Production Info
Cast: 4 total (1 female, 3 male)Full Length Drama (about 110 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95
Play Description
Sharon and Billy, sister and brother, are typical adolescents growing up in a tract home in 1950's Southern California. But when fifteen-year-old Sharon finds herself pregnant, their adolescence comes to an abrupt end.
Production Info
Cast: 4 total (2 female, 2 male)Full Length Drama (about 100 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95
Play Description
Subtitled “a light and dark skin comedy,” CHIAROSCURO is set on a cruise ship peopled by black singles where “pretty” means light-skinned, and all the men are dark, and Papa Legba, the African trickster spirit, is disguised as a ship steward.
Production Info
Cast: 7 total (4 female, 3 male)Full Length Drama (about 100 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95
Play Description
On the docks of late 18th-century Rhode Island, two runaway slaves, Adjua and Dembi, plan a desperate and daring run to freedom. When a chance encounter triggers an unexpected collision of worlds, painful truths are uncovered, and the brutality of past crimes spills into the next generation.
Production Info
Cast: 10 total (3 female, 7 male)Full Length Drama (about 100 minutes)
Multiple Sets
Period Costumes
Play Description
Brad and Edgar realize they're in love. Brad is in the Air Force and has a few months left to serve. An officer arrives at the house, which belongs to a lesbian couple who have been entertaining men from the air base, and the neighbors have reported it. The officer is a closeted gay man and blackmails Brad in return for not reporting him.
Production Info
Cast: 3 total (3 male)Short Comedy (about 45 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
$11.95–$15.00
Play Description
Described by the New York Times as “a threatening portrait of urban insanity. A drug lord is king, corruption is endemic and parents instill offspring with perverse values. In Mr Brown’s Coney Island, everything is for sale.”
Production Info
Cast: 7 total (3 female, 4 male)Full Length Drama (about 125 minutes)
Multiple Sets
Contemporary Costumes
Play Description
At his funeral, Eustace Baylor and his two families examine the tattered cloth of their lives. They find that if you would take one last look, you should take one first look.
Production Info
Cast: 11 total (7 female, 4 male)Short Drama (about 30 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95
Play Description
Wendy, whose secret birth name is Zena, is a negro-identified woman who is passing for white. Suddenly, on a white hot day in August, she crosses paths with her black husband from the past.
Production Info
Cast: 6 total (3 female, 3 male, multiethnic cast)Full Length Drama (about 100 minutes)
Minimal Set Requirements
Contemporary Costumes
$15.00–$15.95
Play Description
The story covers more than fifty years of the life and love of two artists in New York City, living in adjoining apartments. Their life and times constitute a small and memorable model of America from the victory years after World War II, down to the dubious battles of the twenty-first century.
Production Info
Cast: 4 total (1 female, 3 male)Full Length Drama (about 90 minutes)
Single Set
Contemporary Costumes