Ntozake Shange, poet and playwright. Photo courtesy of Barnard College, New York City.
In celebration of Women’s History Month, students will stage “for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf,” Ntozake Shange’s theatrical of 20 poems set to dance and music.
Performances are 7-9 p.m. March 27-29 in Headley Hall, Room 227. Get free tickets by emailing [email protected].
Parking is $1.50 an hour in the 4th Avenue Parking Ramp.
The poems, performed as monologues, sketch the stories of seven women oppressed by a racist and sexist society.
The show is performed by a cast of nameless women, who are identified only by colors they are assigned. Poem topics include rape, abandonment, abortion and domestic violence.
Here is one of the poems:
somebody/ anybody
sing a black girl’s song
bring her out
to know herself
to know you
but sing her rhythms
carin/ struggle/ hard times
sing her song of life
she’s been dead so long
closed in silence so long
she doesn’t know the sound
of her own voice
her infinite beauty
she’s half-notes scattered
without rhythm/ no tune
sing her sighs
sing the song of her possibilities
sing a righteous gospel
let her be born
let her be born
& handled warmly
Shange, 68, debuted the show off-Broadway in 1975. It later was performed on Broadway at the Booth Theatre. It earned several awards, including an Obie Award, an honor given to New York City’s smaller-theater shows by the Village Voice and the American Theatre Wing.
Performances of “for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf” are sponsored by the Council of African American Students and the Women’s Center.
