For Colored Girls Standout Jayme Lawson on Finding Empowerment on Stage and More

Six months ago Jayme Lawson was preparing to graduate from Juilliard group 48. Now, she's appearing as the Lady in Red in Ntozake Shange's For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf at the Public Theater, which marks the first time the play has returned to the Public Theater since its 1976 premiere. The twice-extended revival is in its last few weeks of performances and Lawson stopped by Broadway.com's #LiveatFive to chat with Paul Wontorek about finding herself on stage, the play's continued relevancy and more.

Lawson is one of seven women who take the stage every night, each dressed in a singular color, to tell her character's story of existing in a world shaped by sexism and racism. "Every day I get to show up and feel empowered by these women," Lawson said. "I feel safe on that stage, and they challenge me constantly. We're always trying to find something new in the material. It's a choreopoem, that's how [Shange] described it. Our movements are our words, and there's something new every night. We're always listening and learning from each other."

Lawson was surprised at how timely the content of the piece continues to be. "It feels more relevant than ever," she said. "I feel like I mistakenly associated it with the time period, but when I was digging into her words and rehearsing them it was a little frightening. You want it to be dated, you want it to be something that happened in the '70s and not anymore but that's just not the case. This is still happening, a lot of us are still resonating with these words. It speaks to the brilliance of Ntozake because she was ahead of her time in a major way."

For Colored Girls marks Lawson's first professional stage production, and she has her favorite actresses to thank for giving her the push she needed to follow her passion. "I love Lucille Ball and Phylicia Rashad," she said. "I grew up with those women at a very young age and have all the I Love Lucy tapes. That's really where it piqued my interest; it became something that I also wanted to do. I think WWLD: What would Lucy do?"

The Public is also currently home to Soft Power, and Lawson is thankful that the two are playing simultaneously. "I saw Soft Power and was sitting there in awe over the fact that this is where I come to work every day," she said. "These amazing artists are passing by each other and we're putting on theater that matters; theater that's actually saying something. A lot of the culture right now at the Public is about giving voice to those that are overlooked. We're saying, 'See us, we exist. Don't disregard us.' It's powerful what's happening right now in Public."

See Lawson in For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf, playing at the Public Theater through December 8.

Watch the full #LiveatFive interview below!