For Colored Girls

By: Jackilyn Fuller

With themes comprised of Dancing, jumping, shouting, and crying, For Colored Girls is a masterpiece exploring minority women experiences in America while promoting women empowerment.

Coming together

 Cast members first began putting the play together late August up until November.

It took a month for cast members and the director to bring together the script.  “We started by going through the entire script and analyzing it. And took just like a month to do that part,” said Ginay Lopez, who played the Lady in Brown.

Each cast member will represent a color from the rainbow and each color is symbolic to an emotion. The colors are:

Lady in Red – Passion and anger

Lady in Orange – Love

Lady in Yellow – Youth and innocence

Lady in Green- Bold and persistent

Lady in Blue- Depressed being

Lady in Purple- Positive

Lady in Brown – Intellect and love

“A lot of the monologues are of different women who don’t know each other.  It’s just a poem that focuses on African American women and the struggles they face day to day in America,” Lopez said.

 For Colored Girls in an intertwining choreopoem telling the story of seven women from various backgrounds who have suffered oppression in a racist and sexist society. This award winning and inspiring play will be performed by a group of minority theatre performance majors.

 “As African American women, we’re considered to be the lowest form of being on earth…so we look for the highest being, God. At the very end they say ‘I found God in myself, and I loved her fiercely’,” Lopez said.

 What’s It about?

Just like the original playwright, these Winthrop University students focus their production on abortion, rape, domestic violence and gender inequality.  “This is the first minority production that I have ever seen WU produced,” said Stacey Packer, the stage manager.

The senior hopes that more minority driven productions will be in the making after the theatre department sees the students’ support for, For Colored Girls.

For Colored Girls is a legendary and meaningful play that will keep the audience at the edge of their seats with its true-to life narrative scenes that create a vivid and emotional response to all in attendance.

 

The original poem was written by Ntozake Shange that tells the story of what it’s like to be a woman of color in the 20^th century.  An educator, a performer/director, and a writer, Shange’s work draws heavily on her experiences of being a black female in America.

 

From Nov. 5 to 7 Winthrop students will be performing in Plowden Auditorium at 8 p.m.  Tickets will be on sale for $5.

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Late Night Breakfast

With final exams week finally here, that means its crunch time for all students on campus. For some it’s the last week to determine if they will graduate. For others, it’s a week to determine if they will be retaking a class. Stress is at its highest peak for college students, so where can they find a moment to temporarily relieve the stress?

On Tuesday, Winthrop Dinning Services held a Late Night Breakfast for students where they had lots of free food and prizes. The event was held at the DiGiorgio Center in Richardson ballroom with 100 to 150 students that attended. For their food, they had scrambled eggs, sausages, biscuits and gravy, fruits, and French toast bread pudding. Students were given raffle tickets when they walked into the door so they had the chance to win free prizes. Students could also participate in the live tweeting trivia to possibly win prizes.

“This was a good study break. It energized me and everything because I was definitely getting sleepy and it was good way to pump me up,” said Corina Samuel, a sophomore Psychology major. The majority of the students who attended the Late Night Breakfast found it also energizing before “preparing for an all-nighter.”

Samuel said her favorite part of the event was the cereal eating contest. “I thought it was hilarious watching people shove cereal in their face.” Samuel felt a little laughter is what she needed for to release some of her stress.

Robert O’Hara, the host of the Late Night Event, said “our goal for tonight is to put students in a good mood for their exams. We know a lot of them are stressed so why not give free food and free prizes to make them feel better.” When it comes to college anything free is certain to be a good time O’Hara said.

Mackenzie Williams, a sophomore education major, said the free food is the reason she first came but the chance to win prizes is what really got her excited. “I didn’t win any prizes but I’m broke and I got free food so that’s a win,” Williams said.

Though this event seemed to be about the free food and the prizes it really helped those who didn’t have time to get any food during the day. “It’s finals week so it’s really hard for me to find and get food at times like now while I’m studying and since it was already in the building I’m studying in it was really convenient,” Williams said.

“They should have this every week during the semester but I might be asking for too much; free food every week. But I’ll take it for just finals week,” said Samuel.