Jennifer Holliday Will Play Sofia In THE COLOR PURPLE "mini tour"

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 10/17/14 at 4:55pm

Harpo was supposed to love me!

[RippedMan]

Posted: 10/17/14 at 9:25pm

WTF? This starts soon too. Wish it were coming near here.

[ACL2006]

Posted: 10/17/14 at 11:30pm

This ain't no tour. It's playing 5 performances in Detroit(Oct. 23-26), 3 performances in Chicago(Nov. 15-16), & 4 in Dallas(Nov. 22-23).

[darreyl102]

Posted: 10/17/14 at 11:41pm

Well, most of the press seem to be calling it a tour.

[RippedMan]

Posted: 10/18/14 at 12:41am

It's playing multiple cities....so it's a tour. But who is producing it? Who is directing? It opens in a week? So is it in rehearsals now?

[JPeterman]

Posted: 10/18/14 at 1:22am

I am in Dallas. I heard about it a couple months ago. Apparently they just got the word out to the three cities. It is playing at the oldest and (in my opinion) least desirable of the large performance halls in Dallas-Ft Worth so I am guessing it is not a big, expensive project.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 10/18/14 at 2:53am

On my phone I swear the title read, "Jennifer Holliday Will Play Sofa…."

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 10/18/14 at 9:03am

^ Loveseat was supposed to love me!

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 10/18/14 at 3:07pm

My first thought was "Was there a sofa in Caroliine, Or Change?"

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 10/18/14 at 3:29pm

You told the Radio to beat me?!

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 10/18/14 at 3:35pm

"Hey! Get your hands out from under my cushions! Now you're just LOOKING for change to get pissed off about."

[ThorouglyModern2]

Posted: 11/15/14 at 10:45pm

Looks like the Detroit shows were canceled. I can't find anything about the Chicago shows??

http://www.myfoxdetroit.com/story/26889282/the-color-purple-canceled-ticket-holders-seeing-red

[jimmycurry01]

Posted: 11/15/14 at 11:39pm

Ticketmaster is selling tickets for this weekend and the Arie Crown website has it listed and doesn't say it has been cancelled. I'd say it must be playing in Chicago.

[darreyl102]

Posted: 11/25/14 at 12:54am

Saw the closing Chicago show. it was a nice night out- nothing really special but a nice night out. Jennifer was wonderful as to be expected. The show did suffer some mic issues- especially with the actress playing Celie.

The Audience was the worst i have ever encountered. First the show started 30 minutes late, then people continued to come in all through act 1- up to like 40 minutes in. People talked during the show, had their phones out, were taking video and photos. One person behind me actually fell asleep and was snoring loudly. A girl in my row was crying all throughout intermission. The audience barely applauded. a great number would finish and like 10 people would applaud. During the curtain call, when the whole cast were singing a reprise of the Color Purple, half the audience was walking out. Worst was people actually yelling out actors names whenever they would come on stage. There were sound issues and for the first few songs you could hear the orchestra voices, including the conductor counting down till the song started. The whole cast came out to meet people still in costume (except Jennifer Holliday)and the audience was mobbing them and pulling them around in all directions to get pictures with them. Just a really ghetto audience. Shame on half my people for reinforcing stereotypes. LOL

[RippedMan]

Posted: 11/25/14 at 1:04am

I saw her do Dreamgirls in ATL and was the same thing.

Do you have the Playbill? What venue did it play in Chicago? Any cast lists? Is it Equity? Who is producing? Production values?

[HorseTears]

Posted: 11/25/14 at 3:30am

darreyl102 - that sounds like quite the experience. I'm going to sound like I'm fetishizing black folks now, but one of the most fun nights I've had in the theatre was a performance of FELA! at which several church groups attended. Easily one of the liveliest, most engaged and appreciative audiences I've been a part of.

[ray-andallthatjazz86]

Posted: 11/25/14 at 9:25am

So when white audiences misbehave at a show (which I've experienced countless of times on Broadway and at the regional level), are they also a shame to all of white culture or does that only apply to those you like to call "your people"?

[TheatreDiva90016]

Posted: 11/25/14 at 3:12pm

This thread is racist.

[HorseTears]

Posted: 11/25/14 at 3:36pm

Oh, stop the pearl clutching, guys. darreyl wasn't suggesting that ALL predominantly black audiences are like the one he was a part of at Color Purple. This was clearly not a regular theater-going audience. And if you don't think it's okay to acknowledge cultural differences in audience segments, you've never been to a midnight showing of a horror movie in Harlem.

[BenjaminNicholas2]

Posted: 11/25/14 at 4:26pm

I saw the show when it made a one night stop in San Antonio TX.

Perhaps the worst looking bus and truck tour I've ever seen, and I've seen a ton of crap in my time. Yes, the vocal talent was evident, but their mics were so bad and so badly eq'd that you could barely understand what anyone was saying.

No emotional investment in the show because of it and IMO, a total waste of money. Who produced this pile of crap should never touch another musical production again.

[darreyl102]

Posted: 11/25/14 at 5:19pm

@ ray-andallthatjazz86 - First off, BOTH White and Black people are my People (i am Biracial) Hence why i said Half my people. They were reinforcing stereotypes associated with African Americans- so i pointed it out. I was embarrassed myself just being around them, because they were pretty disrespectful to the actors on stage. I didn't say that all black people act like that, just that this audience was reinforcing stereotypes associated with black people. Those same stereotypes are not associated with White audiences- and there was only 3 white people there, so they just kinda blended in and tried not to make eye contact with anyone. LOL- That was a joke in case you take everything i say literally.

Updated On: 11/25/14 at 05:19 PM

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 11/25/14 at 5:24pm

I take nothing you saw literally.

[darreyl102]

Posted: 11/25/14 at 5:24pm

@ RippedMan - Arie Crown Theatre. They did not have playbills only 10 dollar programs that were like 4 pages long. i bought one, and the cast list was pretty confusioning because it did not list Jennifer Holliday anywhere in it as playing Sofia, instead it listed Angie Stone in the role.

The talent was there, but like others have said, the mics were soo problematic you could not here it. I assume this is non-equity. it was very community theatre. Glad that tickets were soo cheap, otherwise i wouldn't have enjoyed it as much.

[gleek4114]

Posted: 11/25/14 at 5:35pm

Your experience sounds like mine when I saw a community theater production of this show. Terrible audience. I was one of maybe 15 white people in the audience out of 150 people.

[BwayWatcher555]

Posted: 11/27/14 at 4:07am

Wish it were a longer/more legitimate "tour!" Love this show.