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UNH Students Perform “For
Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When The Rainbow Is Enuf”
Nov. 4-6
Contact: Denise Hart
603-862-1426
UNH Media Relations
Oct. 28, 2004
DURHAM, N.H. –When you’re a student of color in a predominately
‘white’ learning institution, it can become quite a
challenge to feel that your voice is heard or even noticed. The
University of New Hampshire’s CONNECT program and seven students
decided to change that when they took on a production of Ntozake
Shange’s award-winning choreopoem “for colored girls
who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf.”
“It began as a means to support the retention efforts of
students of color through performance art,” says Thelma Sanga,
CONNECT program coordinator and first-year student advisor. “As
we progressed and worked together, a second goal emerged—to
utilize the play as a way to bring out the voice of women of color
on campus.”
Sanga is the play’s producer/co-director with Antoinette Hilson,
a UNH senior and theatre major and Irene Kao, multicultural program
coordinator.
The play is open to the public and runs November 4,5,anf 6 at 7
p.m. at Richards Auditorium in Murkland Hall. Tickets are $7.50
for community members and free for UNH students at the UNH Memorial
Union Building box office, or may be purchased over the telephone
with a credit card by calling (603) 862-2290 from 10 a.m.- 4p.m.
The actors include Selina Taylor, Brooklyn, NY; Marie Mathieu, Hyde
Park, Mass.; Lakendra Rose, Philadelphia, Penn.; Paula Garcia, Exeter,
NH; Myra Khan, Chambesy-Geneva, Switzerland; Nikki Perez, Long Beach,
Calif.; and Tamika Harrison, Brooklyn, N.Y. Seven campus organizations
and offices united to help the women produce the play.
The CONNECT program conducts pre-orientation and other year-long
activities for first-year and upperclass students of color.
The play, created in 1975, features the voices of seven women of
color in 20 poems that testify about their lives and the power to
survive. It moved from off-Broadway to become a Broadway hit and
has continued to engage audiences throughout the country.
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