by Nahlah Abdur-Rahman
October 20, 2025
Cleage is thought for her transformative performs centering on Black ladies’s experiences.
Pearl Cleage, an acclaimed author recognized for her emphasis on Black feminist ideology, now reigns as a 2025 recipient of the Legacy Playwrights Award.
Cleage at present works as a distinguished artist in residence on the Alliance Theater in Atlanta. The playwright and essayist has written a number of works in prose and for the stage, turning into town’s first Poet Laureate. Now, she’s going to earn one other excessive honor for her important achievement in stage writing.
Identified for performs equivalent to Blues for an Alabama Sky; Indignant, Raucous and Shamelessly Beautiful; and Flyin’ West, her work focuses on the Black expertise from a feminist lens. The Spelman alumna’s works have garnered acclaim and a focus from students, typically utilizing her textual content as a basis for Black feminist dialogue.
Born to Black radical dad and mom, as her father, civil rights chief Albert Cleage, based the Pan African Orthodox Christian Church and the Shrine of the Black Madonna, this upbringing has drastically influenced her writing. With a grounded emphasis on the intersections of race and intercourse, Cleage is a transformative author who unapologetically facilities her work on Black ladies’s livelihoods. Many tales happen in Atlanta, as her tales discover Black Southern id and womanhood.
Cleage has obtained quite a few awards all through her writing profession, incomes a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Dramatists Guild in addition to the Paul Robeson Award from the Actors’ Fairness Basis.
As for her newest recognition with the Legacy Playwrights Initiative, Cleage shared her ideas on the honour whereas reflecting on her profession as a playwright. She acknowledged the “limitless problem” that comes with this career, however nonetheless considers it her wildest ardour.
“To have the ability to spend my life as a working playwright is a superb blessing and an limitless problem. To be honored by my friends for doing the work I really like is a real pleasure, and I’m simply getting began good!” stated Cleage in an announcement obtained by Playbill.
Along with her award, alongside fellow recipient David Greenspan, Cleage will obtain a financial grant, advocacy, and monetary incentives for the manufacturing of her work. She will even get applications shedding gentle on her performs in addition to interviews marking her storied profession.
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