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.
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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.”
