Ann Flagg

Ann Kathryn Flagg (April 29, 1924 – ) was an American playwright, stage actress and drama teacher, whose works deal with the 19th and 20th century African-American experience. She is best known for her play Great Gettin up Mornin, aired by CBS television in 1964.

Life and career Ann Flagg was born on April 29, 1924, in Charleston, West Virginia, to Frances Thomas and Francis Flagg, young parents who split up during Flagg's childhood.

While at Northwestern, she began teaching drama part time with Evanston Consolidated School District, and went to full time when she graduated. She taught at the Foster School, which became a magnet school called the King Lab. The school auditorium is now named for her.

In 1966, she spent a year teaching drama at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, but health problems and racist colleagues prompted her to return to Evanston the next year. She died suddenly of an attack of bronchial emphysema in 1970.

Works

Great Gettin up Mornin (1963) - Flagg's most famous work deals with a couple wrestling with the decision of whether or not to send their six year old daughter to a newly integrated school in the face of harassment and threats of violence. She wrote it as an exercise in "tension and economy of words, paring it down to the bear bones" and said "I liked the idea of a family under stress making a momentous decision in an hour and a half." The play's title comes from a spiritual. Blueboy to Holiday - Over - This play depicts the friendship between two eight year old boys, one white, one black. A Significant Statistic - The life of a fictional murdered civil rights worker, Jack Davis, is depicted in this work. Unto the Least of These - Inspired by a tombstone Flagg saw in the Oberlin College library of a four year old fugitive slave, this play depicts an underground railroad station in 1853. The Young Shall Die (unfinished) - Based on a poem by Carl Sandberg, it was unfinished at Flagg's death.