Review Roundup: FOR COLORED GIRLS... Opens On Broadway!

The Broadway revival of Ntozake Shange's for colored girls who have considered suicide/ when the rainbow is enuf, directed and choreographed by Tony Award nominee Camille A. Brown opens tonight at the Booth Theatre! Read the reviews!

The show marks Camille A. Brown's directorial debut on Broadway. She becomes the first Black woman to serve as both director and choreographer on a Broadway production in more than 65 years.

Join the circle as seven women share their stories and find strength in each other's humor and passion through a fusion of music, dance, poetry and song that explodes off the stage and resonates with all. It's time for joy. It's time for sisterhood. It's time for colored girls.

Black girl magic is reborn. Ntozake Shange's for colored girls who have considered suicide/ when the rainbow is enuf is the "landmark of American theater" (The New York Times) that blazed a trail for generations to come. Now, this celebration of the power of Black womanhood returns to Broadway for the first time, reinvented, directed, and choreographed by "a true superstar of theater and dance" (NPR), Tony AwardÒ nominee Camille A. Brown. And her vision is as fearlessly new as it is fiercely now.

For more information, visit www.forcoloredgirlsbway.com.

Laura Collins-Hughes, The New York Times: Brown's staging is so attuned to the words and cadences of Shange's choreopoem, yet so confident in its own interpretive vision, that the characters blossom into their full vibrancy. If you've never thought of "For Colored Girls" as a funny show, be prepared for Brown's seven splendid performers to persuade you otherwise. They will also pierce your heart, because this production does not shy from the emotional and existential lows that coexist with the play's highs.

Ayanna Prescod, Variety: Still, Shange's work remains as riveting as it was in 1976. Her words have become more than the unspoken and unrealized accounts of Black women's pain and promise; they have evolved into the gift of permission to heal and the agency to be seen and understood. It has become a memo to Black women to embrace their femaleness (no matter what that looks like) while looking to the rainbow as a sign of hope for the future of the collective, because they alone are enough.

Johnny Oleksinski, The New York Post: The play comes across, unfortunately, as an antiquated time machine that's at odds with the current conversation. Being a glimpse into a specific, different era would be OK - plenty of revivals fit that bill - but "for colored girls" seems awfully intent on speaking forcefully to the present moment. A strong connection to today, however, is nowhere to be found.

Greg Evans, Deadline: Director and choreographer Camille A. Brown and her cast of seven female singer-dancer-actors breathe life and vitality into Ntozake Shange's still-potent mid-1970s touchstone for colored girls who have considered suicide/ when the rainbow is enuf. Opening tonight at the Booth Theatre on Broadway, Shange's fantasia of poetry, dance and stories of confession, defiance, sisterhood and, above all, perseverance, holds a power that's not been weakened either by decades or the loss of a once startling newness.

Melissa Rose Bernardo, Time Out New York: This version of for colored girls truly does feel like a choreopoem, Shange's term for her amalgamation of words, motion and music. (The percussive original score is by Martha Redbone and Aaron Whitby). The seven women on stage are barefoot, and their movement-which draws on African-American traditions including juba, stepping and social dance-feels organic, natural and triumphant. "Sechita," performed and signed by Lady in Purple (the amazing Alexandria Wailes) and spoken by Lady in Orange (Amara Granderson), conjures a seductive Creole carnival worker dancing for dust-covered rednecks; we can almost see this mythical woman "catchin stars tween her toes."

David Finkle, New York Stage Review: Yes, but Shange's 90-minute collection of poems performed by seven women, each in a designated color (Shange undoubtedly means the pun) returns the adjective to its high-wattage definition. Director-choreographer Camille A. Brown's production stuns the daylights out of you.

Juan A. Ramirez, Theatrely: This first Broadway revival, at the same Booth Theatre in which it premiered half a century ago, is nominally a transfer from the Public Theatre's excellent 2019 production. In losing Leah C. Gardiner as its director and having choreographer Camille A. Brown step up for double duty, however, it also loses the simple conversational spark that made their collaboration such an electrifying, sanctified experience.

Lovia Gyarke, The Hollywood Reporter: Her soft, excited wishes fill the intimate space of the Booth Theater in New York City, kicking off Camille A. Brown's rendition of the playwright's canonical choreopoem for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enough. The production, which opens April 20, takes the task of revival seriously - it's a joy to witness.

Matt Windman, amNY: Brown, who has become the first Black woman to serve as a director-choreographer on Broadway in 65 years, was an ideal choice for helming the revival, infusing it with modern dance and coordinating its visual and lyrical elements into a striking pattern. The seven women (including Amara Granderson, Tendayi Kuumba, Kenita R. Miller, Okwui Okpokwasil'i, Stacey Sergeant, Alexandria Wailes, and D. Woods) handle their solo pieces beautifully while also forming a tightly-knit ensemble.

Jonathan Mandell, New York Theater: It's taken more than 45 years for Ntozake Shange's theatrical evening of narrative and lyrical poetry, dance, and song to return to Broadway's Booth Theater....and for me finally to understand its cumbersome title. "for colored girls who have considered suicide/ when the rainbow is enuf " opens tonight in a glamorous and, in one way, newly inventive production directed and choreographed by Camille A. Brown.

Brittani Samuel. Broadway News: This revival of "for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf" is one link in a chain of productions re-introducing the work of our titans - Alice Childress, Adrienne Kennedy and more - to modern audiences. Only Shange's work has been on Broadway before, first premiering at the Booth Theatre, where the revival is currently playing, in 1976. It remains a seminal, sacred text; one I've been able to recite phrases from for the better half of my life. This revival, by director and choreographer Camille A. Brown, is the most essential production of Shange's masterwork to date.

Chris Jones, The New York Daily News: The best moments in this production, which features the performers Amara Granderson, Tendayi Kuumba, Kenita R. Miller, Okwui Okpokwasili, Stacey Sargeant, Alexandria Wailes and D Woods, are those when the words face forward, the speaker tells truths, and the lyrical beauty of the piece is allowed to soar, without apology. Pain and all. That said, there are many rich and vibrant moments. It's great to see this spectacular American piece of writing now reaching a new generation of Broadway theatergoers. Shange, who could and perhaps should have been poet laureate, deserves every last piece of applause.