Friday, March 29, and Saturday, March 30, 7:30 p.m.
Playcrafters Barn Theatre, 4950 35th Avenue, Moline IL
A Tony Award-winning modern classic will enjoy a special presentation at Moline's Playcrafters Barn Theatre on March 29 and 30, as Bridges Collective and TOH (Testimonies of Hope) Argow's House present author Ntozake Shange's For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf, the poetic meditation on African-American life that the New York Daily News called “a triumphant event” and Time magazine deemed “a pognant, gripping, angry, and beautiful work.”
Capturing the brutal, tender and dramatic lives of contemporary Black women, For Colored Girls offers a transformative, riveting evening of provocative dance, music, and the spoken word. A series of 20 poems collectively called a “choreopoem,” this lauded work – a 1977 Tony nominee for Best Play – finds Shange's poetry expressing many struggles and obstacles that African-American women may face throughout their lives, and is a representation of sisterhood and coming of age as an African-American woman. The poems are choreographed to music that weaves together interconnected stories, with the piece performed by a cast whose characters are only identified by the colors they are assigned. Subjects including rape, abandonment, abortion, and domestic violence are tackled, yet For Colored Girls also exists as a work of togetherness and triumph, symbolizing the unity that its women find in sharing their stories.
A dozen area talents make up For Colored Girls' ensemble, with the cast boasting Shawn Bolton, Cresencia Burhans, Alisha Hanes, Amari Harris, Abi Jensen, Ivy Jensen, Joy Johnson, Elaine Miller, Tammy Reed, Lu Anne Sisk, Chelsea Ward, and famed local storyteller and radio personality Shellie Moore-Guy, whose local stage portrayals include roles in Playcrafters' A Raisin in the Sun and A Woman Called Truth. The production's crew features Diana Anita Allen as producer/director, Thea Ellis as stage manager, Madelyn Jackson as assistant director, and additional contributions and support by Ida Bland, Jasmine Bozeman, Dorian Byrd, Shoma Oyahla, Marquita Reynolds, and LaVerne Wheatley.
TOH (Testimonies of Hope) Argrow’s House provides free holistic services for women healing from violence and abuse in the grater Quad Cities region, with services ranging from grief-support counseling to art therapy to offering holistic care and development opportunities for women of all walks of life. The Bridges Collaborative's mission, meanwhile, is to encourage the Quad Cities community through positive intergenerational projects, with its values cited as “Artistic expression of the community, economic uplifting for the community, access and voice in the community, and educational excellence and affirmation by the community.”
For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf will be presented at 7:30 p.m. on March 29 and 40, and admission is $10 at the door. For more information, call (309)269-0305, or contact Playcrafters at (309)762-0330 or Playcrafters.com.
