For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf at The Last Acting Studio

Production: for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf

Written by: Ntozake Shange

Presented by: The Last Acting Studio

Directed by: Desean K. Terry

Featuring: Ashley August, Sequoiah Blaire, Serenity Calhoun, Briana Price, Aliysa Shareef, Ryn Stafford and Alise Willis

Produced by: The Last Acting Studio, Desean K. Terry and Billy J. Baker

Stage Manager and Lead Designer: Izzy Donenberg

Assistant Director and Assistant Stage Manager: Alexia Maree

Current Performance Schedule: August 7, 8, 14 and 15, 2026

Time: 8:30 p.m.

Venue: The Last Acting Studio

Address: 1914 Raymond Avenue, Los Angeles

Running Time: Approximately 90 minutes

Tickets: $35 general admission; $25 for LAS students

Availability: August 15 is sold out; tickets remain for August 7, 8 and 14

Ticket Link: thelastactingstudio.com/performances

Seating: Limited

for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf is a 1976 work by Ntozake Shange. It consists of a series of poetic monologues accompanied by dance movements and music, a form which Shange coined the word choreopoem to describe. It tells the stories of seven women who have suffered oppression in a racist and sexist society.

As a choreopoem, the piece is a series of 20 separate poems choreographed to music that weaves interconnected stories of love, empowerment, struggle and loss into a complex representation of sisterhood. The cast consists of seven nameless African-American women only identified by the colors they are assigned. They are the lady in red, lady in orange, lady in yellow, lady in green, lady in blue, lady in brown, and lady in purple.

The production is directed by LAS founder and actor Desean K. Terry, known for his series-regular role as Daniel Henderson on Apple TV’s The Morning Show.

Terry’s staging reimagines Shange’s historic work for five voices rather than the traditional seven, emphasizing the ensemble nature of the choreopoem. Rather than assigning each performer a fixed identity, the production approaches the women as a shared chorus, carrying one another’s stories as they move through memory, survival, grief, joy, sisterhood and the fullness of Black womanhood.

Seven performers rotate across the five voices in different combinations throughout the engagement, creating a distinct ensemble configuration for each performance.

Part play, part poetry event and part ritual, the production uses music and movement to transform the performance space. Shange’s text is visibly incorporated into the staging as a living theatrical score. As the ensemble configuration changes, each performance reveals different relationships within the work.