The cast of for … girls (Micah Thompson)
Kansas City Public Theatre opened its fourth annual TheatreLab FEST this weekend with a big, bold bang. In for … girls, playwright Darren Canady tackles a host of theatrical and societal ills, from problematic shock-value-based reimaginings to the hollowness of the lip-service diversity so many institutions claim to be invested in, to the disrespect and erasure of Black women. Canady dives into these issues with acerbic wit, delivering scathing commentary with laugh-out-loud humor.
Ty Derricks (Terraye Watson) is an up-and-coming Black director riding the success of his recent questionable but exceedingly popular version of Dreamgirls, in which The Dreams were all played by puppets. His new production, shrouded in secrecy and NDAs, is a “fresh” adaptation of Ntozake Shange’s for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf. Derricks is taking substantial liberties with Shange’s choreopoem—her iconic testament to Black women—reducing the size of the cast to just three women, all of them white.
for … girls follows Derricks and his cast through their embattled rehearsal process. The women push back against the play’s concept to wildly varying degrees, and even those who seem to see how troubling the adaptation is still can’t help but center themselves in their feelings about it. Canady (aided by an exceptional cast) achieves the impressive feat of filling his script with characters who are all infuriatingly obtuse in their own unique ways, and who we delight in watching anyway.
Acting as our guide for this story is Sheryl (Haley Johnson), a longtime friend and collaborator to Ty. Speaking directly to the audience, she gives personal context to Ty’s betrayal and fills us in on events happening outside the theatre: the furious response from primarily Black women, the protests, the police presence in response to those protests. Johnson is phenomenal in the role, emanating passion, anger, love, exhaustion, and more in a series of intimate monologues sprinkled throughout the play. She shepherds the audience through the story with care, but does not let us off the hook for the injustices perpetrated by theatrical institutions.
Canady has bold ideas and a mesmerizing way with words. Director Teisha M. Bankston has done an incredible job finding every bit of humor and poignancy in his script and curating moments that resonate deeply. With for … girls, Kansas City Public Theatre, which hosted the first staged reading of the play in 2023, continues to establish itself as a major source of exciting new play development.
“for … girls,” a production of Kansas City Public Theatre as part of the 2023 Theatre Lab, runs through May 20 at the Charlotte Street Foundation, 3333 Wyoming St. For more information, visit kcpublictheatre.org.
