About the Play:

The First Breeze of Summer has long been a favourite of acting teachers for Male Monologues and Female/Male Scenes.

The First Breeze of Summer is a full-length drama by Leslie Lee. 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.

The First Breeze of Summer takes place over the course of one sweltering weekend in June, as the struggles of three generations of the Edwards family collide. The family matriarch, "Gremmar" – as her grandsons call her – reflects on the lessons of her own youth and the three lost love affairs that shaped her life and her family while the conflict between her two teenage grandsons and their father comes to a head. She recalls the three men, two black and one white, none a husband, 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. Leslie Lee's Obie Award-winning play is a timeless portrait of family bonds and coming of age.

The First Breeze of Summer was originally produced in 1975 by The Negro Ensemble Company (NEC) at the St. Marks Playhouse in the East Village of New York City. Directed by Douglas Turner Ward, it won an OBIE Award for Best New American Play and the Outer Critics Circle Award. Subsequently, the play moved to the Palace Theatre on Broadway and received a Tony Award nomination for Best Play. The play has become a favourite scene study vehicle in acting classes and workshops and enjoyed a successful 2008 revival with The Signature Theatre Company, winning nine Audelco Awards.

Cast: 6 female, 8 male

What people say:

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

About the Playwright:

Leslie Lee (1930-2014) was an American playwright, director and professor of playwriting and screenwriting. He was Executive Director of the Negro Ensemble Company (NEC) and a founding artist of La Mama E.T.C. His plays have been produced both on and off Broadway, and he wrote extensively for film and television. He taught for The Goldberg Department of Dramatic Writing Program at the NYU Tisch School the Arts, MiddleSex Community College, Hunter College, Wesleyan College, Rutgers University, The New School University, Goddard College, The Negro Ensemble Company, and The Frederick Douglas Playwriting Workshop.