Ntozake Shange‘s ‘For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf’ is back on Broadway. The revival of the groundbreaking story continues to uplift and empower Black women’s voices just as the play did 46 years ago. Award-winning choreographer and director Camille A. Brown brought the classic “choreopoem” back to the Booth Theatre in New York City with a touch of Black girl magic. The triumphing performance features monologues about love, life, joy, and violence combined with unique dance and movement.
Brown and cast member D. Woods sat down with Atlanta Black Star to discuss tying text to movement and Black women’s experiences.
“For Colored Girls” marks Brown’s directorial debut on Broadway and her second revival of the play, which took place at The Public Theater off-Broadway. She is also the first Black woman to serve as director and choreographer on a Broadway production since Katherine Dunham over 65 years ago.
“It feels massive. It feels like a moment. It feels extraordinary. There’s nothing like it that I’ve ever felt before,” says Brown about her dual role.
As director and choreographer, Brown was granted the task of pairing Shange’s powerful words with movement, dance, and music.
“I think everything in your life is in preparation for what is to come. So it’s not just about preparing for this one moment but how has all of your experiences as a director, as a choreographer, prepared you for this moment now. So that’s also what I’ve been thinking about too. Macro-preparation and micro preparation.”
“For Colored Girls” on Broadway features a variety of touching and relatable moments that received snaps instead of claps for applause. Brown emphasized that each woman “uniquely” moves their body and hands. Each woman represents seven different colors of the rainbow, much like her work centers on identity and stories that create impact.
She explains that “It’s never easy. So I will say that. I think it’s challenging because this show has been done so many times.” She wondered, “So how do you, as a creator, put your take forward and your voice? What are the movements that are uniquely you to pour into it? So that has been the challenge. How truthful can I be in terms of putting who I am into it, all of me, into it?”
However, having creative control also produced a few “obstacles,” says Brown, including “getting out of my own way.”
“Because I think sometimes with a legacy piece, something that has been done for over 40 years but has been done many times by many people, you can easily get into, ‘Oh no, if I do this, I’m going out of the box.’ ‘Oh no, I need to say this line this way, this needs to land this way, or it always lands this way,'” she continued. “It’s easy to get into that kind of mindset, so I had to work to get out of that and go, ‘Camille, just do you. Just tell the story the way you know, and like my friend said, this is an offering. That’s what it is, so I’m excited for that.”
The 42-year-old believes “it’s always important” to share the experiences of Black women, especially in spaces not “made for us.”
She said, “I don’t think there’s ever any time when a Black woman speaks that it’s not important, so the fact that we have this opportunity again to have seven Black bold, brave women be vulnerable in that space, in a Broadway space that was not technically made for us. But we are [in] that space, and that is important for us.”
Starring in the revival is a group of talented actresses and vocalists, including former Danity Kane singer D. Woods. As Lady in Yellow, the 36-year-old enjoys working under Brown’s direction.
“That’s another particular thing about this piece is that we can bring so much of ourselves through it, and I love the direction Camille is giving us,” Woods explains. When you think you’re doing too much and she’s not saying anything, that means go until she tells you to stop. It’s like I can do that. I can do [and] be that, and she’s like, ‘Yeah, if I didn’t say anything, that means keep going in that direction.'”
D. Woods rose to fame as a member of Danity Kane — the female singing quintet formed on Diddy‘s “Making The Band” show in the early 2000s. The group released two albums before downsizing to a trio and disbanding entirely in 2009.
She was introduced to the ‘For Colored Girls’ play while attending Tri-Cities High School for Visual and Performing Arts in the Atlanta suburb of East Point.
“I was introduced to this play as a teenager in high school. So doing this kind of theater, doing this kind of work has been in my DNA,” said the “Show Stopping” singer mentions. “I’ve been trained; I’ve been conditioned; I’ve been brought up in this tradition of this kind of non-linear storytelling, ‘choreopoem.'”
Woods continued her studies at The Alvin Ailey School and later graduated from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts. Even though theater is her passion, the artist still happens to appreciate her musical roots.
She continues, “Coming from training at Alley, training at NYU. ‘Making the Band’ … Danity Kane was part of my story, and this is another part of the story. So it’s like continuing my evolution as an artist and showing all the parts of myself, where the audience that knows me from that. I always say if you like that, you gon’ love this.” She added, “You saw me on TV; now you can see me in the flesh.”
Tickets for ‘For Colored Girls on Broadway are on sale at www.forcoloredgirlsbway.com. Other cast members include Amara Granderson as Lady in Orange, Tendayi Kuumba as Lady in Brown, Kenita R. Miller as Lady in Red, Okwui Okpokwasili as Lady in Green, Stacey Sargeant as Lady in Blue, and Alexandria Wailes as Lady in Purple.
