Month: October 2023

for colored girls is back!

Paul Williams and Donald Sutton, representing the Ntozake Shange Trust, have announced that the late author’s groundbreaking Broadway play for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf is now available nationwide for licensing for amateur and professional productions.

for colored girls became a theater classic based on its first Broadway production in 1976 when it became the longest running play in the history of Broadway written by a Black author. Ever since, it has routinely been produced annually on college campuses throughout the nation as well as in community and regional theaters.

The most recent Broadway production of for colored girls in 2022, directed by award-winning choreographer and director Camille A. Brown, garnered seven (7) Tony nominations, including Best Revival of a Play. However, other productions of the play could not be authorized until recently. Now, the play is fully available for licensing in the United States through Concord Theatricals.

Many household names in theater and film honed their skills as one of the ladies in for colored girls. The list includes Angela Bassett, Alfre Wooward, Lynn Whitfield, S. Epatha Merkerson and Regina Taylor. The work was also adapted by Tyler Perry into a major motion picture in 2010 featuring Janet Jackson, Whoopi Goldberg, Kerry Washington, Phylicia Rasha, Thandiwe Newton and Loretta Divine among other notable cast members.

Parties interested in licensing for colored girls for stage productions should contact Concord Theatricals as indicated below:

Concord Theatricals
Professional Licensing Inquiries: professional@concordtheatricals.com
Nonprofessional Licensing Inquiries: nonprofessional@concordtheatricals.com
www.concordtheatricals.com

Go to officialntozakeshange.com to learn more about the life and legacy of Ntozake Shange.

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The Shange Trust Announces the Audiobook for Sing A Black Girl’s Song Is Now Available

The audiobook for Sing A Black Girl’s Song: The Unpublished Works of Ntozake Shange, published by Legacy Lit, Hachette Book Group and released in September 2023, features a stellar list of narrators. Voices on the audiobook include celebrated talents such as Alfre Woodard, D. Woods, Regina Taylor, Lynn Whitfield, Okwui Okpokwasili, Imani Perry, Robin Miles and Tarana Burke. Shange’s sister, award-winning playwright and author, Ifa Bayeza, as well as Shange’s daughter, Savannah Shange, award-winning author and professor of Anthropology at UC Santa Cruz, have also lent their voices to this remarkable collection of never-before-published works by Shange. The audiobook of Sing A Black Girl’s Song is available wherever audiobooks are sold.

Sing a Black Girl’s Song is a new posthumous collection of Shange’s unpublished poems, essays and plays from throughout the life of the seminal Black feminist writer. Here we meet the young Shange, learn the moments that inspired for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf…, travel with an eclectic family of musicians, sit on “The Couch” opposite Shange’s therapist and discover plays written after for colored girls’ international success. Every fan of Ntozake Shange and her life’s work will want to own their copy of this remarkable volume and its exceptional audiobook.

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Lynn Whitfield Reflects On Her Career Ahead of the Prince George’s Film Festival

Acclaimed actress Lynn Whitfield is headlining the Prince George’s Film Festival’s closing ceremony at MGM National Harbor.

In this article, she reflects on her career from her childhood influences to her college years at Howard University, her early experiences in the D.C. Black Repertory Company, and her breakthrough stage performance with Alfre Woodard in “for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf.”

Read it here.

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Musical theater lecturer Jeanine Tesori on imperfect music and living in an empty lighthouse

Jeanine Tesori, a lecturer of musical theater composition at Yale’s Department of Music, has written four Tony-nominated Broadway scores — “Twelfth Night at Lincoln Center,” “Thoroughly Modern Millie,” “Caroline” and “Shrek the Musical” — in addition to two Tony-winning scores — “Fun Home” and, most recently, “Kimberly Akimbo,” a musical about a lonely teenage girl who suffers from a condition that gives her the appearance of an elderly woman.

As a teacher, Tesori encourages her students to embrace their inherited musical gifts, a lesson inspired by the oral music traditions of folk music. On the first day of classes, Tesori always poses a question to her students: “Who are you bringing into the room with you?”

“To Natalie Brown ’25 and many other students, Tesori is a “fairy godmother” of sorts. Brown, who is a singer-songwriter in addition to being a full-time student, first encountered Tesori while taking “Advanced Composition for Musical Theater.”

When Brown wrote an adaptation of Ntozake Shange’s “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide,” Tesori helped Brown contact the estate of Shange and put her in touch with WME, Brown’s current agency.”

Read more here.

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“Passing Strange” director Thomas W. Jones II talks about mothers, sons, finding the truth in music

Tony-award winning “Passing Strange” is a rock musical that explores the journey of Youth, the main character, as he runs from his upbringing in a Black, middle-class family in Los Angeles to Europe in search of his true self, delving into the tension between conservative Black middle-class values and the desire for authenticity and self-expression, highlighting the ridicule and struggle faced by those who don’t conform.

In this article, the play’s director, Thomas W. Jones II, explains his thoughts on the play’s themes, and the role of music as a source of revelation and salvation, providing a connection to one’s truth.

Read more here.

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Imani Perry’s Arrival Marks A Homecoming

 

GAZETTE: Tell me about the book you just edited, which is due out in September.

PERRY: I was fortunate to be asked by Hachette and the Ntozake Shange estate to edit a collection of her unpublished writing. Even though Shange was so prolific, and published so much, there was still this beautiful body of material the world hadn’t seen yet.

In so many ways she followed [“A Raisin in the Sun” playwright] Lorraine Hansberry in opening doors for Black women in American theater. That felt like a wonderful connection. I also remember being in Cambridge as a kid, and my mother would always perform the Lady in Green character from [Shange’s 1976 play] “for colored girls [who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf]” at parties and the like.

 

More information here.

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Wisconsin Book Festival event highlights the Ntozake Shange collection

The Wisconsin Book Festival is soon approaching and Madison Public Library in partnership with Madison Public Library Foundation is getting ready for the Oct. 19-22 dates by hosting exciting events to lead into the literary celebration.

For poetry and Black literature fans alike, an upcoming online event centering Ntozake Shange’s new posthumous collection called “Sing A Black Girl’s Song” will be offered free to the public on Sept. 20, 7 p.m., on Crowdcast.

The collection included unpublished poems, essays, and plays that explore experiences both as a Black woman in America, and as a human in the grand scheme of existence. Shange uses her voice and writings as a way to share an often underrepresented perspective while providing space for fellow Black women to be seen and undertake the journey of healing.

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The Chicago Reader’s dramatic top ten for fall

 

For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When the Hue Gets Too Heavy, by Ryan Calais Cameron
Nominated for best new play at the 2023 Olivier Awards. Father figures and fashion tips. Lost loves and jollof rice. African empires and illicit sex. Good days and bad days. Six young Black men meet for group therapy, and let their hearts—and imaginations—run wild. Inspired by Ntozake Shange’s essential work for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf, For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When the Hue Gets Too Heavy is a profound and playful work of drama.

Full list here.

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