In Honor of Black History Month - Steal Away: The Story of a Homesteader and an Exoduster.
This one-woman show written and performed by writer Penny Musco, is set in 1880 and examines the lives of two unlikely friends – Priscilla, a white woman from New Jersey, who is determined to move her family to Kansas to claim 160 acres of land under the Homestead act, and Abigail, one of an estimated 20,000 – 40,000 ex-slaves intent on finding a better life in the Midwest and Great Plains. At the time, blacks who left Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee and Texas en masse were dubbed ‘exodusters,’ a term likening their plight to the Biblical exodus of the Israelites who fled Egypt. Many who joined in the massive movement to Kansas did so with the help of whites who sympathized with the African-Americans’ ongoing struggles. “While Steal Away certainly speaks to Black History, it’s really about American History,” says Ms. Musco.
