The sisterhood between Fantasia Barrino and Danielle Brooks began on Broadway. That is, the sisterhood of the order of The Color Purple.
Both women starred on stage in the musical adaptation of Alice Walker’s 1982 Pulitzer-prize winning novel. Barrino spent 10 months in 2007 playing Celie, the poor country girl who survives an abusive step-father and husband and realizes her worth.
Brooks spent a year in the 2015 revival as the defiant Sofia, opposite Cynthia Erivo as Celie. Now filmmaker Blitz Bazawule places them in the exact same parts in his blockbuster musical movie version, starring Taraji P.
Henson, Colman Domingo and Corey Hawkins, with Oprah Winfrey — who was Oscar-nominated for her Sofia in Steven Spielberg’s 1985 film version — producing.
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