The winter play, “Flyer” was performed the weekend of Dec. 2. It ran Friday and Saturday at 7:00pm and Sunday at 2:00pm and was a project that allowed the Air and Space Academy to be highlighted.
Synopsis of the play: While the Project Mercury astronauts carried America’s hopes and dreams into space, NASA was busy training another elite corps of pilots, some with more flight experience than John Glenn and company. None of this group soared into space; they were women and here is their story. Flyer focuses on the hopes and dreams of one young pilot in particular. Fran Douglas rises above family scorn and her fiancee’s condescension to join the women’s corps. Action scenes involving NASA, Congress and Fran’s family are intertwined with dream sequences about an intrepid black barnstormer, Bessie Coleman, who died in the 1920s performing an aerial feat. Bessie warns Fran about the many obstacles she will have to overcome to achieve her dream, a dream left unfulfilled when NASA pulled the plug on training women for space flight.
