Unfinished Women Cry In No Man’s Land While A Bird Dies In A Gilded Cage

On March 12, 1955, the same day that virtuoso jazz saxophonist Charlie “Bird” Parker is dying in the plush boudoir of his wealthy European patroness, the spirited teenagers in the Hide-a-Wee Home for Unwed Mothers (the “unfinished women”) must decide whether to keep their babies or put them up for adoption. The Bird is trapped in lost dreams of the past, while the young women look to the possibilities of the future. Mixing poetry and live music into a rich tapestry of longing and love, Unfinished Women possesses a rare and haunting lyricism not soon forgotten. 

 

Unfinished Women is an underground classic which has played in college and university theaters throughout the United States since its publication in Margaret Wilkerson’s 1986 anthology Nine Plays by Black Women.

 

By Aishah Rahman

Directed by Tioga Simpson