CHICAGO, IL, Monday, June 5, 2006 – Eclipse Theatre Company (ETC) of Chicago announces African-American writer Pearl Cleage (pronounced "cleg") as the featured playwright of their 2007 season. She will be the tenth featured playwright since Eclipse adopted its "One Playwright, One Season" mission in 1997, joining previous season focus writers Rebecca Gilman, Lanford Wilson, Keith Reddin, Neil Simon, John Guare, Romulus Linney, Lillian Hellman, Tennessee Williams, and Jean Cocteau. Cleage will visit Eclipse during the 2007 season, and readings from her novels will be featured throughout the year as well. Eclipse’s Cleage season will be performed at the Tony Award-winning Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago.

Eclipse Theatre’s 2007 Pearl Cleage season will open with a revival of “Blues for an Alabama Sky” (March 16– April 29, 2007). Set in 1930, the creative euphoria of the Harlem Renaissance has given way to the harsher realities of the Great Depression. A rich cast of characters reflect on the conflicting currents of the time through their overlapping personalities and politics as they struggle to look beyond Harlem for the fulfillment of their dreams. The season will continue with a revival of the two one-act plays “Hospice” and “Late Bus to Mecca” (July 20 – September 2, 2007). “Hospice” revolves around a mother and daughter trying to come to grips with their dysfunctional relationship as the mother is dying of cancer. “Late Bus to Mecca” focuses on the curious meeting between a sometime prostitute, Ava Gardner Johnson, and ABW (a black woman) while waiting for a bus to Atlanta just before the Muhammad Ali-Jerry Quarry fight in 1970. The season will conclude in the fall of 2007 with a revival of “Bourbon at the Border” (November 9 – December 16, 2007), which follows the lives of two ordinary people who joined hundreds of other Americans for a massive voter registration drive in Mississippi in the summer of 1964. White supremacists, outraged at the challenge to their segregated way of life, responded with violence that left three civil rights workers dead and many wounded. Years later, the two are still searching for a way back from the damage that was done to them during that long ago “Freedom Summer.”

Eclipse artistic director Anish Jethmalani said, “Pearl Cleage is an extraordinarily talented writer and one of the most accomplished in African-American literature. Her plays and novels continue to challenge her readers and audiences in issues revolving around race and gender. We are honored to give our audiences a year-long glimpse into her passionate world and are simply thrilled to be featuring a selection of her works in our 2007 season."

Pearl Cleage is an Atlanta-based writer whose works include the novels, What Looks Like Crazy On An Ordinary Day, Tunnels of Love, I Wish I Had A Red Dress, and Some Things I Never Thought I'd Do; several plays, including “Blues for an Alabama Sky,” “Bourbon at the Border,” and “Flyin' West;” two books of essays, Mad at Miles: A Blackwoman's Guide to Truth and Deals with the Devil and Other Reasons to Riot; and a book of short fiction, The Brass Bed and Other Stories. She is also a performance artist, collaborating frequently with her husband, Zaron W. Burnett, Jr., under the title Live at Club Zebra. The two have performed sold out shows at both the National Black Theatre Festival in Winston-Salem, NC, and The National Black Arts Festival in Atlanta, GA.

Cleage is a frequent contributor to anthologies and has been featured recently in Proverbs for the People: Contemporary African American Fiction, edited by Tracy Price-Thompson and TaRessa Stovall, and in Mending the World, Stories of Family by Contemporary Black Writers, edited by Rosemarie Robotham. She is a contributing writer to Essence magazine, and, in 1998, her novel What Looks Like Crazy On An Ordinary Day was an Oprah Book Club pick and spent nine weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. Her work has also appeared in numerous anthologies, including Double Stitch, Black Drama in America, New Play’s From the Woman’s Project, and Contemporary Plays by Women of Color. Pearl is an artistic associate of Just Us Theatre Company in Atlanta and founding editor of CATALYST, a magazine of heart and mind. An academically gifted student in high school, Cleage enrolled at Howard University in 1966 where she studied playwriting. She left Howard in 1969 at the age of 20 to marry an Atlanta politician. Upon graduating in 1971 from Spelman College, she worked at a number of media jobs including hosting a local, black-oriented interview program as well as being Director of Communications for the city of Atlanta and Press Secretary for Mayor Maynard Jackson. Cleage began her playwriting career in the 1980's with productions of “puppetplay,” “Hospice,” “Good News” and “Essentials.” This was in addition to contributing essays to national magazines such as Essence, the New York Times Book Review, Ms. and Black World. She gained national attention as a playwright beginning in 1992 with the production of “Flyin' West,” which premiered at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta and has subsequently been produced at a number of regional theatres across the country. After premiering at the Alliance Theatre in 1995, “Blues for an Alabama Sky” returned to Atlanta as part of the 1996 Olympic Games following a production at Hartford Stage and broke attendance records at the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C.

Eclipse continues its 2006 season dedicated to featured playwright Rebecca Gilman with “Spinning into Butter,” directed by Anish Jethmalani, running 7/21/06 – 9/03/06. They recently produced the Midwest premiere of “The Sweetest Swing in Baseball” and will conclude their 2006 season dedicated to Gilman at Victory Gardens with a revival of “Boy Gets Girl,” directed by ensemble member Steve Scott, running 11/3/06 – 12/17/06.

The Eclipse ensemble is Cecil Averett, Rom Barkhordar, Cheri Chenoweth, Chris Corwin, Julie Daley, Steven Fedoruk, Thomas Jones, Anish Jethmalani, CeCe Klinger, Maren Robinson, Kevin Scott, Steve Scott, Tiffany Scott, Gary Simmers, Nathaniel Swift, Katie Vandehey and Frances Wilkerson. A non-profit organization founded in 1992, Eclipse Theatre Company is the only Midwestern theatre dedicated to producing the works of one playwright each season. Through a yearlong exploration of one writer’s works, Eclipse strives to bring a full, complex, and complete experience to its audiences of that writer’s canon.

Eclipse Theatre Company is a member of the League of Chicago Theatres, and most recently received a Joseph Jefferson Citation Nomination for Best Supporting Actress (Isabel Liss for “Talley & Son”). In addition, Eclipse received a 2005 Joseph Jefferson Citation Nomination for Best Director (Steve Scott for “Big Time”) and a 2004 After Dark award for Best Sound Design (Cecil Averett for “Frame 312”). Eclipse has received a total of 11 Joseph Jefferson Awards, 29 Joseph Jefferson nominations, and three After Dark Awards in its last 13 years.

Eclipse Theatre is partially supported by grants from the City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs (City Arts 1), The Elizabeth Cheney Foundation, The Illinois Arts Council, The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation, The Mayer and Morris Kaplan Foundation, The Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, The Alphawood Foundation, The Leo S. Guthman Fund, and the annual support of businesses and individuals.