For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf is a 1975 stageplay by Ntozake Shange. First performed at the Bacchanal, a woman's bar outside of Berkeley, California, it was first produced in New York City at Studio Riobea in 1975; produced Off-Broadway at the Anspacher Public Theatre in 1976; and produced on Broadway at the Booth Theatre that same year.
The play was first published as a book in 1977 by Macmillan Publishing, followed by a Literary Guild edition in October 1977 and Bantam editions beginning in 1980. A heavily edited version of the play was made into a TV movie in 1982 featuring Shange, actresses Laurie Carlos and Tony Award winner Trazana Beverly from the stage production, dancer Sarita Allen, and with early-career performances by Alfre Woodard and Lynn Whitfield.
According to Hilton Als in The New Yorker's Critic's Notebook (March 5, 2007), "...all sorts of people who might never have set foot in a Broadway house — black nationalists, feminist separatists — came to experience Shange's firebomb of a poem. ...[T]he disenfranchised heard a voice they could recognize, one that combined the trickster spirit of Richard Pryor with a kind of mournful blues."
Structurally, For Colored Girls is a series of 20 poems, referred collectively as a "choreopoem", performed through a cast of nameless women, each known only by a color: "Lady in Yellow", "Lady in Purple", etc.. The poems deal with love, abandonment, rape, and abortion. The performances of the seven actresses are focused on their specific stories; i.e., Lady in Blue's visceral account of a woman who chooses to have an abortion; and Lady in Red's tale of domestic violence.
Lady in Brown embodies youthful determination as she runs away from home to live with Haitian liberator Toussaint L’Ouverture. The end of the play brings together all of the women for “a laying on of hands,” where Shange evokes the power of womanhood as the Lady in Red begins the mantra “I found God in myself/ and I loved her/ I loved her fiercely.”
On September 3, 2009 (following an original pitch made in March 2009 by Nzingha Stewart), Lionsgate announced that it was teaming up with Tyler Perry's 34th Street Films for a film adaptation of For Colored Girls. The film will be written, directed and produced by Perry. Shange confirmed that Halle Berry, Angela Bassett, and Jill Scott have all signed contracts. Filming is set to begin November 2009 and will be released in 2010.
For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf at the Internet off-Broadway Database
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edition]] For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf is a 1975 play by Ntozake Shange. Initially staged in California, it has been performed Off-Broadway and on Broadway, and adapted as a book, a television movie, and a planned theatrical film. The 1977 Broadway production was nominated for a Tony Award for best play.
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Structurally, For Colored Girls is a series of 20 poems, collectively called a "choreopoem." It is performed by a cast of seven women characters, each of whom is known only by a color: "Lady in Yellow," "Lady in Purple," etc. The poems deal with love, abandonment, rape, and abortion, embodied by each woman's story, i.e. Lady in Blue's visceral account of a woman who chooses to have an abortion, and Lady in Red's tale of domestic violence. The end of the play brings together all of the women for "a laying on of hands," in which Shange evokes the power of womanhood as the Lady in Red begins the mantra "I found God in myself/and I loved her/I loved her fiercely."
First performed at the Bacchanal, a woman's bar outside of Berkeley, California,[citation needed] it was first produced in New York City at Studio Riobea in 1975;[citation needed] produced Off-Broadway at the Anspacher Public Theatre in 1976;[1] and produced on Broadway at the Booth Theatre that same year.[2]
According to Hilton Als in The New Yorker's "Critic's Notebook" of March 5, 2007, "...all sorts of people who might never have set foot in a Broadway house — black nationalists, feminist separatists — came to experience Shange's firebomb of a poem. ...[T]he disenfranchised heard a voice they could recognize, one that combined the trickster spirit of Richard Pryor with a kind of mournful blues."
The play was published as a book in 1977 by Macmillan Publishing, followed by a Literary Guild edition in October 1977 and Bantam Books editions beginning in 1980.[citation needed] A heavily edited[citation needed] version of the play was made into an American Playhouse TV movie in 1982 featuring Shange, actresses Laurie Carlos and Tony Award winner Trazana Beverley from the stage production, dancer Sarita Allen, and with early performances by Alfre Woodard and Lynn Whitfield.[3]
Awards
Awards
Nominations
On September 3, 2009, Lionsgate announced it had acquired the distribution rights Tyler Perry's 34th Street Films adaptation of the play, with principal photography originally scheduled to take place in Atlanta, Georgia in November and December 2009, with a planned 2010 release.[4] The film will be written, directed and produced by Perry. The cast includes Loretta Devine, Kimberly Elise, Whoopi Goldberg, Janet Jackson, Phylicia Rashad, Anika Noni Rose, Jill Scott, Jurnee Smollett, Kerry Washington, Tessa Thompson, Michael Ealy, Macy Gray and Omari Hardwick.[5] Mariah Carey had also been cast, but pulled out in May 2010, citing medical reasons; Thandie Newton has been cast to replace her.[6]
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   | a TV movie - "American Playhouse" For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf (1982) |
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