New York theater critics have given universally positive reviews to the Broadway revival of the 1976 choreopoem For Colored Girls. The creative team includes Ntozake Shange (libretto), Martha Redbone and Aaron Whitby (music, orchestrations, arrangements), Camille A. Brown (direction, choreography), Myung Hee Cho (sets), Sarafina Bush (costumes), Jiyoun Chang (lights), Justin Ellington (sound), Aaron Rhyne (projections), Cookie Jordan (hair & wigs), and Deah Love Harriot (music direction). The cast includes Amara Granderson (Lady in Orange), Tendyi Kuumba (Lady in Brown), Kenita R. Miller (Lady in Red), Okwui Okpokwasili (Lady in Green), Stacey Sargeant (Lady in Blue), Alexandria Wailes (Lady in Purple), and D. Woods (Lady in Yellow).
Hollywood Reporter (Lovia Gyarkye): The production .. takes the task of revival seriously — it’s a joy to witness. … With the help of her dynamic cast, Brown, who both directs and choreographs this revival, remixes for colored girls, manipulating sound and movement to reveal even deeper layers. … Stories, in the right hands, can be intoxicating, and for colored girls takes advantage of that. Brown’s cast possesses such an intimate understanding of their characters that even the least subtle of the performances captivates. … The magic of Brown’s version of for colored girls is that it fashions the choreopoem as an invitation.
N.Y. Times (Laura Collins-Hughes): A Broadway homecoming celebration that you will not want to miss: the triumphant return of Ntozake Shange’s For Colored Girls. … Triumphant, that is, because the director-choreographer Camille A. Brown’s thrilling and exuberant revival breathes warm, kinetic life into a canonical work that has been known to suffer from being treated … with a well intended but stifling reverence. Brown’s staging is so attuned to the words and cadences of Shange’s choreopoem, yet so confident in its own interpretive vision, that the characters blossom into their full vibrancy. … In Brown’s sublime and supple channeling, we hear Shange with exquisite clarity.
Time Out (Melissa Rose Bernardo): This rousing revival testifies to the magnitude of [Shange’s] imagination and the unyielding power of the female voice. Almost from the start, the show is in constant motion … stopping the flow only to underscore the text’s most serious moments, such as a still on-point sequence about “latent rapists.” … Though grounded in the experience of Black women in the 1970s, Shange’s poems have a timeless resonance. … When it comes to a heartbreaking end, mama-to-be Miller isn’t the only one in tears. 4 out of 5 stars.
Vulture (Helen Shaw): The seven Ladies don’t simply dance, they now move in spectacular ways. … Brown is one of our finest choreographers, and she is turning her movement-mind to the way women’s bodies carve and take up space — particularly the way these arrangements can actually make weight easier to bear. And there is a lot of weight to carry. … Not to get too mystical about it, but this impeccably performed, exquisitely choreographed revival manages the same for many of us out there in the dark.