by Kristen Nevarez Schweizer
October 6, 2025
Moxie Theatre’s Blues for an Alabama Sky by Pearl Cleage unfolds like a jazz riff stretched across a Harlem summer—hot, aching, and unapologetically slow. Under the direction of Executive Artistic Director Desireé Clarke Miller, this production renders the 1930s Harlem Renaissance not as a postcard of progress, but as a fever dream fading into the long night of the Great Depression.
The show is set in the apartment building of openly gay Guy (effortlessly likeable Kevane Coleman), a costume designer dreaming of dressing Josephine Baker in Paris. Guy’s lifelong friend Angel (gorgeous Deja Fields) is a down-on-her-luck jazz singer, and his neighbor, Delia (luminous Janine Taylor), is a progressive Christian do-gooder who is lobbying to open the first birth control clinic in Harlem. This is a play of intersecting ambitions and conflicting morality.
In theatre history, this is the same moment when American drama began to shift from escapist vaudeville toward socially conscious realism—when writers such as Clifford Odets and Langston Hughes were turning art into advocacy. Like early Tennessee Williams, every dream in this show feels both theatrical and doomed.
Miller’s direction slow dances to that era’s music with patience. The pacing—particularly in the extended scene transitions—might feel languid to audiences accustomed to cinematic momentum, but the pauses allow the moment’s weight to linger and build anticipation. These transitions stretch time, mirroring the aching stagnation of the time. Moody lighting transforms in-between moments into visual elegies, and provides breathing space for the audience to digest the accumulating drama.
It’s the costumes that steals the show, a triumph of texture and storytelling. Every garment feels like a love letter to both Harlem and character development. The wardrobe, particularly Guy’s stunning ensembles, captures what Cleage’s characters crave most—dignity, visibility, the right to shine even when the lights dim. In a play about dreamers desperate for transcendence, the costumes are transcendence.
The ensemble scenes were the most engaging. Fiery and fragile Angel (Deja Fields) moves like a trapped cat. Guy (Kevane Coleman) delivers the best punchlines and radiates charisma. Delia and Sam (Janine Taylor and standout Xavier Daniels) embody the era’s social awakening, their idealism tested by reality. And then there’s Leland (Carter Piggee), the Alabama newcomer whose moral certitude and impulsivity deliver the inciting incidents of the show. Together, they form a chorus of yearning. (Also, what a pleasure to see a mini Hot Wing King reunion.)
Cleage’s script, written nearly thirty years ago, premiered in 1995 and arrived amid a renaissance of Black women playwrights. Anna Deavere Smith, Suzan-Lori Parks, Lynn Nottag, and others were reclaiming African American history through fearless and intimate narratives. Today, Cleage’s play doesn’t just ask us to remember Harlem’s past, or compare ‘90s storytelling to now, but dares us to see its echo in our own fractured present.
Blues For an Alabama Sky
by Pearl Cleage
Directed by Desireé Clarke Miller
Running through October 26
Moxie Theatre
Tickets $20–$59
P.S. This show marked the final opening night of Moxie’s Managing Director, Valentina Lunati. This heroic woman kept this essential theatre alive—and countless artists employed—through the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. Best wishes, Valentina; your heart will be missed.
