Family. The subject has preoccupied playwrights perhaps more obsessively than any other. Sophocles, Shakespeare, Eugene O’Neill, Tennessee Williams, August Wilson, and Tracy Letts—the great writers of each generation have added to our collective wisdom about the powerful bonds that bring families together and can rip them apart, producing many of the world’s most enduring dramas.

Leslie Lee’s The First Breeze of Summer holds an important place in this literary lineage, and in American theatre history. One of the first plays performed on Broadway by an African American theatre company, Lee’s vision of family was one rarely portrayed on American stages when it premiered in 1975. But like those at the center of all great drama, this family and its story transcend time, geography, and race to touch something at the core of what makes us all human.

Take a Look Inside The First Breeze of Summer:

Interview with Playwright Leslie Lee
The Negro Ensemble Company
The Role of Ritual/Director's Note