From its inception in California in 1974 to its highly acclaimed
critical success at Joseph Papp's Public Theater and on Broadway, the
Obie Award-winning for colored girls who have considered suicide/when
the rainbow is enuf has excited, inspired, and transformed audiences
all over the country. Passionate and fearless, Shange's words reveal
what it is to be of color and female in the twentieth century. First
published in 1975 when it was praised by The New Yorker for
"encompassing...every feeling and experience a woman has ever had," for
colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf will
be read and performed for generations to come. Here is the complete
text, with stage directions, of a groundbreaking dramatic prose poem
written in vivid and powerful language that resonates with unusual
beauty in its fierce message to the world.