FROM OKRA TO GREEN Comes To Temple Theaters
Performances run February 1st-3rd, 2024.
In 2015, celebrated poet and playwright Ntozake Shange visited Temple University to see a production of her award-winning play, for colored girls who have considered suicide / when the rainbow is enuf. Almost 10 years later, now after the author's passing in 2018, Shange's work returns to the Temple Theater stage with FROM OKRA TO GREENS, a "choreopoem" set to the beat of contemporary African-inspired music. The work features the poetic stylings of Shange, designed to propel audiences across time and space and into the true heart of love.
FROM OKRA TO GREENS is directed by Ontaria Kim Wilson, a Philadelphia based director, choreographer, and actor. The production will be performed February 1st-3rd, at Randall Theater, 2020 N. 13th St., Philadelphia, PA featuring Temple student performers.
Tickets can be purchased through this ticketing link: https://www.onthestage.tickets/show/temple-university-school-of-tfma/64ac534f35d0a10e37d8e29d/
Ntozake Shange coined the term "chorepoem" to describe her work, which combines poetry, music, and dance. The word and Shange's work are intrinsically linked to Black performance art, and FROM OKRA TO GREENS highlights and celebrates the African diasporic experience within the context of a loving relationship. "This brings life to the phrase 'To love me is to know me,'" says Wilson.
"Shange's poems aren't war cries," wrote Jack Kroll of Newsweek "They're outcries..." and the wild world of love, friction, and emotion, created by FROM OKRA TO GREENS follows in this tradition of poetic dramatic expression. Says Wilson, "FROM OKRA TO GREENS serves a melodious bowl of soulfully cooked poetry, music, and dance blending in both choreopoem and musical theatre seasoning. It is a reminder of the importance of teaching the history of a people; honoring the indigenous people of the lands in which we plant our feet; and allowing love, in its purest form, to flourish."
This production contains explicit language, referenced moments of the Pan African lived experience throughout the world, and a reference to sexual abuse.
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