The First Breeze Of Summer
by Leslie Lee

The First Breeze Of Summer Book Cover
The First Breeze Of Summer Cover

Highlights

120 mins 1970s Multicultural Casting Unit Set/Multiple Settings American

Synopsis

This striking story of a middle class Black family in a small Northeastern city is told on two levels: events that transpire on one hot June weekend and flashbacks to the memories of the visiting grandmother as a young woman.

She recalls the three men, two black and one white, who are the fathers of her three children.

A resourceful woman, she feels some regrets, no shame and feels she has had a useful life.

Lou, an oversensitive boy who is about to graduate from high school, worships the grandmother.

The resolution of his problems and his acceptance of his sexuality and blackness form the backbone of the play.

Press Reviews

"The people emerge as richly complex human beings... Storytelling with a passion ... [that has] all the old fashioned virtues."

— The New York Times

"Leslie Lee explains the revealing of secrets as the seeking of light; like trying to fill the void between reality and God's will"

— The New York Theatre Review

"Delicate[ly] balance[s]...religion and reality, human flaws and dignity, humor, tenderness and pathos."

— Variety

Characters

Character
Nate Edwards

black male, in his early to middle 20s

Lou Edwards

Nate's brother, seventeen or eighteen

Aunt Edna

black female, in her mid-fifties

Milton Edwards

Edna's brother, father of Lou and Nate, mid-fifties

Hattie

Milton's wife, her early to mid-fifties

Lucretia

the young Gremmar, her late teens

Sam Green

black male, his mid to late twenties

Briton Woodward

white male, his late teens or very early twenties

Revered Mosely

black male, his early sixties

Hope

Nate's girlfriend, black, her early twenties

Joe Drake

white male, in his mid-forties

Gloria Townes

black female, in her late thirties

Harper Edwards

black male, in hid mid-thirties

Gremmar

Milton and Edna's mother, in her 70s

Publication

Publisher Samuel French
Year 1975
Binding Paperback
Pages 108
Place New York
Language English
ISBN-13 9780573609213
ISBN-10 0573609217

The First Breeze Of Summer is a American play written by Leslie Lee and published by Samuel French in New York (1975).

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Rating

3.7

12 ratings · 34 reviews

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Performance Rights

Available for Licensing
Amateur & Professional
Fee: Minimum Fee: $110 per performance

Restrictions: Major Markets Plus (US) / Standard Plus Add'l Postcodes (UK)

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