for colored girls who have considered suicide/ when the rainbow is enuf, 1970-2008, undated

Subseries 1.7, for colored girls who have considered suicide/ when the rainbow is enuf, 1970-2008, undated, includes early handwritten and typewritten manuscripts of poems, typewriter manuscripts of the entire work, an original chapbook version of the text, and rewrites and additions of poems for later productions of the choreopoem with handwritten edits. for colored girls…, a choreopoem, was first published in 1976 by Shameless Hussy Press, as a chapbook collection of poems. Its first publishing in its current forms (with the current set of poems) was a 1977 Macmillan edition. The work consists of twenty originally separately written but interconnected poems concerning the intricacies of womanhood, oppression in a racist and sexist society, and relationships between women of color. It was developed into choreographed monologues and first performed at the Bacchanal, a bar outside Berkeley, California in 1974, after which it was performed around California, traveling to alternative and non-profit spaces in downtown New York in 1975 and 1976. In June 1976 it opened at the Public Theater, and subsequently moved to the Booth Theater in September 1976, where it ran for two years. The Broadway production was nominated for a Tony Award in 1976. It has subsequently been adapted for television and film and many stage productions in the U.S. and internationally. Later editions include new choreopoems written by Shange in the decades after its first publication.