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Camille A. Brown is set to make history as the first Black woman to simultaneously serve as a director and choreographer on Broadway in over 65 years through her 2022 production of Ntozake Shange’s 1976 classic for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf.
Notably, it’ll be Brown’s Broadway directorial debut.
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“I’m extremely thrilled and honored to helm this new production of for colored girls…,” Brown said in a statement, according to Deadline. “It’s an amazing feeling to bring this seminal show back to Broadway 45 years after it opened at the Booth Theatre on September 15, 1976. I look forward to diving into the divine Ntozake Shange’s choreopoem and celebrating her legacy.”
The production will be produced by Nelle Nugent, Ron Simons, and Kenneth Teaton.
“It is an honor to help usher the return of Ntozake Shange’s groundbreaking work to Broadway under the direction and choreography of Camille A. Brown, who is herself blazing a new path on Broadway as the first Black woman in more than 65 years taking on this dual role,” producer Ron Simons said. “I am quite confident that the ancestors and Ntozake’s spirit are lifted.”
Brown’s directorial debut on Broadway only builds on her experience with Shange’s 1976 hit. Back in 2019, she choreographed a revival of the play for The Public Theater off-Broadway.
As the founder and artistic director of the dance company Camille A. Brown and Dancers, Brown has been honored with countless awards including a Guggenheim Award, a Bessie Award, a Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award, and many, many more. She’s also worked on Broadway’s Once On This Island, NBC’s Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert, and the Oscar-nominated Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom for Netflix.
In 2019, she received a Tony nomination for her choreography in Tarell Alvin McCraney’s Choir Boy.
According to Forbes, the last Black woman to simultaneously direct and choreograph on Broadway was Katherine Dunham, with her “three act dance revue” in November 1955.
For colored girls… is a critically acclaimed theater piece that tells the stories of seven Black women and their struggles with sexism and racism through poetry, song, and movement.
Brown’s 2022 production has yet to publicly share details on casting and performance dates.
