Every year since Emancipation, the Nacirema Society of Montgomery, Alabama introduces six elegant African American debutantes to a world of wealth, privilege and social responsibility. This year, at its 100th anniversary, with young love brewing, old flames simmering and national media attention on hand, what would dare to go awry? The warm and funny play takes place in 1964, 10 years after the bus boycott and just as Martin Luther King, Jr. is preparing for a massive voter registration drive. As Pearl Cleage (Flyin’ West) writes, “It is important to remember that even in the midst of massive social upheaval and revolutionary change, people still found time to fall in and out of love, to keep the family secrets or spill the beans and to embrace the great human chaos of their very specific lives.”
