In 1974, poet and playwright Ntozake Shange debuted her groundbreaking work, For colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf, at The Bacchanal, a women’s bar in Albany, California. Using an innovative form she defined as a “choreopoem”—a blend of poetry, storytelling, music, and dance—Shange presented a series of dramatic monologues that invoked the lives, loves, and struggles of women of color. By confronting issues of racial and sexual oppression through her art, Shange sought to open a path to healing, liberation, and transformation.

Two years after its premiere at The Bacchanal, for colored girlsopened on Broadway in New York and became a smash success. Since then, the play has been produced by theater companies around the world, adapted for television, and as a feature film. These dresses and playbill are from the Broadway production of for colored girls.

The dresses and playbill displayed above are now in the collection of theSmithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Visitors to the museum can view these objects in the “Taking the Stage” and “A Changing America: 1968 and Beyond” exhibitions.

Credits and Sources:

2007.3.35-.37. - Costume dresses from for colored girls… on Broadway, 1976-1978. Designed by: Judy Dearing. Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of the Black Fashion Museum founded by Lois K. Alexander-Lane.

2012.152.1213 - Playbill for for colored girls…, November 1977. Published by: Playbill. Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Dow B. Ellis, Playbill used by permission. All rights reserved, Playbill Inc.

"Ntozake Shange." Poetry Foundation. Accessed January 9, 2016. http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/ntozake-shange.

“The Worlds of Ntozake Shange.” S&F Online, Issue 12.3-13.1, Summer 2014/Fall 2014. Barnard Center for Research on Women. http://sfonline.barnard.edu/worlds-of-ntozake-shange/

“Shange, Ntozake/Williams, Paulette (1948-).” BlackPast.org. http://www.blackpast.org/aah/shange-ntozake-williams-paulette-1948

Richard, Jocelyn M., “A Thematic Exploration of ‘For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf,’ by Ntozake Shange” (2001). Electronic Theses and Dissertations. Paper 682. http://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1674&context=etd