A splash of The Color Purple: the Broadway production of the popular book and movie is a runaway success

IT'S a wrap. The Oprah Winfrey-backed Broadway production of The Color Purple is a runaway success, nominated for 11 Tony Awards, including best musical, best original score, best performance by a leading actress in a musical, and several best featured actors and actresses in a musical.

The Color Purple, which is thriving on intense word-of-mouth, is based on the 1982 Pulitzer Prizewinning novel by Alice Walker and the major Hollywood film adaptation by Steven Spielberg.

The show, which opened in December, has ranked in the Top-5 lists of box-office sales and it outpaces other Broadway shows in daily ticket sales by at least $100,000, says Carol Fineman, a spokeswoman for The Color Purple. The music and lyrics, written by Brenda Russell, Allee Willis and Stephen Bray, combine for a popular soundtrack. To top it off, the show recently announced plans for a national tour beginning in April 2007.

The soaring popularity of the production has not surprised the actors and actresses, including LaChanze, who won the Tony for best leading actress in a musical for her memorable role as the embattled Celie, a poor, Black girl in the rural South. It is a story of transcendence, triumph and redemption, centered around Celie and the women in her life, including her quiet and smart sister Nettie; the audacious Shug Avery; Sofia, the wife of Harpo who wears her womanhood like armor; and Squeak, Harpo's girlfriend. The production also centers on the autocratic and abusive Mister, Celie's husband and Harpo's father.

"The show's popularity isn't surprising because The Color Purple has name recognition," says LaChanze, taking a break recently before a Wednesday matinee performance. "When you hear the name, you immediately think of either the novel or the film. People are familiar with the story. People are familiar with Celie's story. It is not a story that is uncommon, particularly in the African-American community."

The rollicking and emotional musical, playing at the Broadway Theatre in Times Square, has attracted audiences from around the globe and from all walks of life, young and old, White and Black, and many first-time theatergoers, such as Geraldine George, a retiree from the Bronx, who attend ed the show for the second time in May. Until recently, she had never been inspired to venture from the upper-reaches of New York City to attend a Broadway show in Times Square. The attraction for her was knowing of the book and the film, which she has watched several times. "I saw it the first week it came out, and it was great," she said after seeing the musical recently. "So I had to come back. The Broadway production is well put together for it to have been a popular book and a movie. I enjoyed the dancing and singing."

Black theatergoers on Broadway, known as "the Great White Way," have created a different scene because most theatergoers are White. But the show's popularity has brought African-Americans to the theater in droves. And the audience is bringing a little extra flavor to the 1,718-seat Broadway Theatre. You can hear toe-tapping, clapping, expressions of sympathy out the performance. The actors and actresses love it. Just ask LaChanze, who thrives on the energy from the audience. She needs it. The character endures sexual abuse, the loss of her children, a brutal marriage and separation from her sister, Nettie, played by Darlesia Cearcy.

"We love it, love it, love it, love it," says LaChanze, who has appeared in Ragtime and Once on This Island (Tony and Drama Desk nominations). "I've been doing theater more than 16 years now here in New York on Broadway. This is the most colorful and lively audience I have ever had, and I love it! It's absolutely the best. It can be very draining to do this. But because it's also such an uplifting and invigorating story, by the end, I'm usually just as moved and fulfilled as a lot of people in the audience."

Kingsley Leggs, whose character Mister undergoes a redemptive transformation, also enjoys the vocal audience and its racial mix. "It's a wonderful thing and certainly something Broadway has never seen," he says. "I really think it's wonderful. I'm not surprised by the response to the show. I think all of us who have been involved for more than a year, we knew that the story itself was proven."

COPYRIGHT 2006 Johnson Publishing Co.
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