Marsha Norman: Last News

EXCLUSIVE: The prestigious Yale Drama Series Prize for emerging playwrights has announced eight contenders selected for its first-ever short list.

Warner Bros. PIctures’ The Color Purple will make its streaming debut on Max on February 16.

Hello and welcome to the Scene 2 Seen Podcast. I am Valerie Complex, an associate editor and film writer at Deadline.

The Color Purple often succeeds as a thoughtful fusion of two other adaptations of Alice Walker’s landmark novel that still confidently hums its own tune.In shakier moments, though, confidence gives way to nostalgia, when the film hammers home its reinterpretations of quotable scenes and dialogue from the Quincy Jones-produced, Steven Spielberg-directed 1985 adaptation with an insistence that borders on flashing “Hey, remember this?” in bold type onscreen.Creating and saying something new with such proven material, while also purposely coaxing audience sentiment for a beloved original, surely posed a formidable challenge for Bazawule and company. And having Jones, Spielberg, and Oprah Winfrey — the big guns and big breakout from the 1985 film — onboard as producers must have eased and complicated the gig in unfathomable ways.Oprah and Jones also had a hand in the original Broadway musical adaptation, which has spun off its own lore and legacy, and adds another meta layer of pop-lit gloss to what this film aims to freshly reinterpret.The stage musical — with a book by Marsha Norman, and lyrics and music by Brenda Russell, Allee Willis, and Stephen Bray — has amassed its own roster of breakout stars, including American Idol winner Fantasia Barrino, who made her 2007 Broadway debut stepping into the lead role of Celie, and Orange Is the New Black‘s Danielle Brooks, Tony-nominated for playing Sofia opposite Cynthia Erivo in the 2015 Broadway revival.Barrino and Brooks reprise their respective roles here with a lived-in grace and fortitude that does freshly illuminate Walker’s moving narrative, the lifeblood that courses through every iteration.

The Bridges of Madison County, currently at Signature Theatre, Ethan Heard had seen the musical during its original Broadway run. He knew and appreciated Jason Robert Brown’s score.

EXCLUSIVE: Jesús I. Valles’ play Bathhouse.pptx has been awarded the prestigious 2023 Yale Drama Series Prize, with the honor’s judge Jeremy O. Harris calling the new work an exploration of “a queer history that is quickly being erased.”

The royally enjoyable cast of Signature Theatre’s The Color Purple (★★★★★) forges a chain of love with no weak links in Timothy Douglas’ knockout staging of the musical based on Alice Walker’s novel and the acclaimed 1985 motion picture.The show marks a milestone for Signature, which, according to artistic director Matthew Gardiner, had developed plans a decade ago for a take on the musical, fresh off a two-year Broadway run of the original Tony-winning production.But those plans were scuttled due to John Doyle’s 2015 Broadway revival starring powerhouses Cynthia Erivo, Jennifer Hudson, and Danielle Brooks.Eventually that production made its way to D.C. in the modified form of a Broadway touring company which, frankly, left a lot of the meat of this turbulent, decades-spanning drama still on the bone.

EXCLUSIVE: Jeremy O. Harris, the Tony-nominated author of Slave Play, has been named the presiding playwright for the 2023 Yale Drama Series Prize, one of the theater world’s most prestigious playwriting prizes. As the presiding playwright, Harris, a Yale alum, becomes a judging panel of one to select an emerging playwright to receive the annual prize.

Taraji P. Henson has signed on to star alongside H.E.R. and Corey Hawkins in Blitz Bazawule’s (Black Is King) adaptation of The Color Purple for Warner Bros., Deadline has confirmed.