Lionsgate has picked up the feature rights to the stage play “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf” and hired music video director Nzingha Stewart to helm from her screenplay adaptation.
“For Colored Girls,” written by Ntozake Shange, is a poetic exploration of what it is to be of color and female in this world. The play is a series of 20 poems telling stories of love, abandonment, domestic abuse and other issues faced by Black women.
It was first performed on stage in 1975. Seven years later, it was made into a telepic with Shange, Laurie Carlos, Trazana Beverly, Alfre Woodard and Lynn Whitfield for PBS’ “American Playhouse” banner.
“The acquisition reflects Lionsgate’s leadership role in producing and distributing a diverse roster of motion pictures about Black characters,” the studio said in a statement recently.
The film joins an upcoming release slate that includes the Sundance Film Festival triple 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?”
