Ella The Ungovernable is a play based on the true story of 15 year-old Ella Fitzgerald’s incarceration and eventual escape from The New York Training School For Girls in 1933.
Ella had come to Yonkers, NY, from Virginia as part of The Great Northern Migration in the late 20s. Fairly soon after their arrival in Yonkers, Ella’s mother, Tempie, was killed in a car accident. Ella was left in the custody of her mother’s boyfriend, Joseph, who was rumored to have abused her.
She was soon sent to stay with an aunt in Harlem, who neglected her. Eventually, she ended up living on the streets of Harlem, where she served as a lookout for a house of prostitution. It was then that she was snapped up by the police, and eventually ended up at The Training School.
It is at The Training School where the majority of the action of the play transpires. The Training School of the 1920s was notorious for the physical and sexual abuse of the inmates. Just how did Ella and her fellow inmates both survive and endure? That is the crux of this powerful play, whose ultimate message of “don’t ever, ever, give up,” is intended as a rallying cry for these anxiety-ridden times.
