Ntozake Shange’s for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf is a landmark work of theatre first performed in the 1970s. Written as a series of poetic monologues combining movement, music and performance, Shange created a new theatrical form she called a choreopoem. The work explores the experiences of Black women through stories of love, violence, joy, survival, identity and resilience.
The work has also been adapted for the screen. Tyler Perry’s 2010 film For Colored Girls brings Shange’s stories to cinema, portraying the interconnected lives and experiences of African American women and the challenges they face. The film was directed by Tyler Perry and, like the original work, draws from Shange’s collection of 20 poems, exploring issues including relationships, abuse, sexuality, loss, identity and survival.
More than fifty years on, the work arrives at The Yard Theatre in Hackney Wick in a new production directed by Diane Page, with original music by Jammz. The production marks the reopening of the redeveloped Yard and brings Shange’s words to a new generation.
On stage, Cherrelle Skeete, Alex Thomas-Smith, Nadine Higgin, Tatenda Naomi Matsvai and Ibilola Rossi deliver Shange’s words through poetry, movement and music. The play is stripped back, with no elaborate props to distract from the performers. It is the walls of The Yard and the five actors who carry the production, and they have no choice but to perform. And perform they do. Stories of their lives are painted vividly, sometimes sad.
Although rooted in the experiences of Black women in America, the themes of racism, sexism, relationships, violence, sexuality, self-worth and survival do not stop at the US border.
Sadly, this makes the production particularly powerful in 2026. Many of the questions Shange was asking about how Black women are seen, heard, treated and represented remain painfully relevant on both sides of the Atlantic.
Page’s for colored girls who have considered suicide refuses to make trauma the whole story. There is humour, joy, friendship, desire and celebration alongside the pain. These five Black and mixed-race women, and women in general, are not defined simply by what has happened to them, but by their ability to survive, support one another and reclaim their voices.
Fifty-two years after Shange first created the choreopoem, for colored girls still has something urgent to say. At The Yard, the words feel less like a piece of theatre from another era and more like a conversation that has never really ended. In the current political climate, we all need to join the conversation.
for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf runs at The Yard Theatre from 2 September to 17 October 2026.
