India.Arie to Star in Broadway Revival of For Colored Girls

Two-time Grammy Award-winning songstress India.Arie will make her Broadway debut in a revival of Ntozake Shange's For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf. Described as a "new, re-envisioned" production of the 1976 hit show, For Colored Girls will begin previews on August 19 at Circle in the Square, produced by Whoopi Goldberg, directed by Shirley Jo Finney and choreographed by Hinton Battle.

Performed by a cast of seven, For Colored Girls is a series of prose poems and stories illuminating the identity of black women in America, as they reveal themselves, their lives, triumphs, hardships and ultimately their discovery of inner strength and love. The revival will feature new and updated material from Shange. Complete casting will be announced soon.

For Colored Girls made its debut at the Public Theater in May 1976 and transferred to Broadway's Booth Theatre on September 10, 1976. The show garnered a 1977 Best Play Tony Award nomination, and landed actress Trazana Beverley a Best Featured Actress Tony and a Theatre World Award for her performance. The show played 742 performances before closing on July 16, 1978.

India.Arie has sold more than eight million copies of her three recordings Acoustic Soul, Voyage to India, Testimony: Vol. 1, Life & Relationship, winning two Grammys and receiving 16 Grammy nominations and three NAACP Image Awards. Her song "Heart of the Matter" is featured on the Sex and the City soundtrack, and she has just begun her own music imprint called Soulbird Music. As a US Ambassador for UNICEF, she has traveled to Africa several times to address the AIDS crisis there.

With musical direction by seven-time Tony-nominated orchestrator Harold Wheeler Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Hairspray, The Full Monty and TV's Dancing with the Stars, For Colored Girls will feature set design by Scott Bradley, costume design by Paul Tazewell, lighting design by Victor Tan and sound design by Mitch Greenhill.

In addition to Goldberg, who won a Tony as a producer of Thoroughly Modern Millie, For Colored Girls is being produced by Dreamteam Entertainment Group Dr. Victor Leo Walker II, Harold Wheeler, Keryl McCord, Ned S. Goldstein, Fredric D. Rosen and Peter B. Knepper.