‘For Colored Girls’ Stars Talk Broadway Revival: ‘One Can’t Help But to Be Proud of Being a Black Woman on Stage’
variety.comMichael Appler On September 15, 1976, Ntozake Shange’s “for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf” opened at the Booth Theatre, forever reshaping the form and feel of American theatre.
On Wednesday evening in New York City, “for colored girls” returned to the Booth Theatre for its first exuberant revival on Broadway.Then, “for colored girls,” a collection of poetic monologues, set the Broadway stage for Black women to speak and introduced a theatrical form made for its telling: The “choreopoem,” a device of Shange’s invention, bent the conventions of spoken word, poetry and dance to the needs of Black women.
It also shared 45th Street with another work busy remaking the theatrical canon, “A Chorus Line.” As “for colored girls” returns to Broadway a generation or two later, it carries a new milestone.
Tony-nominee Camille A. Brown makes her directorial debut and becomes the first Black woman to direct and choreograph a show on Broadway.“This is a play that’s passed down between Black women,” Brown told Variety on opening night. “It was passed to me from my mother, who told me ‘don’t ever let anyone take your stuff away.’ She didn’t tell me until a few years ago that the line was from the play. ‘For colored girls’ is literally passed between women in that way, but it’s also a spiritual passing of information, love, vulnerability and sisterhood.”“The aspect of Black women coming together in a space to empower each other is something that’s necessary for me,” she continued. “As Black women, there is necessity to our collectivity.”Community was Shange’s political weapon of choice.
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