Production History
First performed at the Bacchanal, a woman's bar outside of Berkeley, California, it was first produced in New York City at Studio Rivbea in 1975; produced Off-Broadway at the Anspacher Public Theatre in 1976; and produced on Broadway at the Booth Theatre that same year.
According to Hilton Als in The New Yorker's "Critic's Notebook" of March 5, 2007, "...all sorts of people who might never have set foot in a Broadway house — black nationalists, feminist separatists — came to experience Shange's firebomb of a poem. he disenfranchised heard a voice they could recognize, one that combined the trickster spirit of Richard Pryor with a kind of mournful blues."
The play was published as a book in 1977 by Macmillan Publishing, followed by a Literary Guild edition in October 1977 and Bantam Books editions beginning in 1980. Segments from the play were performed in-studio on WGBH-TV's Say Brother (now known as Basic Black) television series in December 1977, with actresses Paula Larke and Barbara Alston. A heavily edited version of the play was made into an American Playhouse TV movie in 1982 featuring Shange, actresses Laurie Carlos and Tony Award winner Trazana Beverley from the stage production, dancer Sarita Allen, and with early performances by Alfre Woodard and Lynn Whitfield. Biracial actress Rashida Jones performed this play while in her second year at Harvard.
Read more about this topic: For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow Is Enuf
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