“Colored Girls” To Be Feature
Variety reports:
Lionsgate has acquired feature rights to the stage play “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf” and signed video director Nzingha Stewart to helm from her screenplay adaptation. “For Colored Girls,” written by Ntozake Shange, was first first performed in 1975 and made into a 1982 telepic with Shange, Laurie Carlos, Trazana Beverly, Alfre Woodard and Lynn Whitfield. The play’s a series of 20 poems, touching on stories of love, abandonment, domestic abuse and other issues faced by black women.
Lionsgate made the announcement Wednesday and touted its “leadership role in producing and distributing a diverse roster of motion pictures about black characters.” the minimajor noted that its upcoming release slate that includes the Sundance award winner “Precious,” the documentary “More Than a Game” and the next two films in the Tyler Perry franchise, “Tyler Perry’s I Can Do Bad All By Myself” and “Tyler Perry’s Why Did I Get Married Too?”
Mike Paseornek, president of production, said, “‘For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf” was a milestone in modern American theatre, and it speaks as powerfully today as it did when it was first performed in New York in 1975.”
Whoopi Goldberg tried to bring a production of the play to Broadway this season, but the financing fell through and the show was canceled.
