You remember the movie. Directed by Stephen Spielberg in 1985, set in 1909-1949 Georgia, nominated for 11 Academy Awards. Oprah Winfrey, who starred in it with Whoopi Goldberg and Danny Glover, is determined that you not forget The Color Purple. So, with producers Scott Sanders and Quincy Jones, she’s put it on Broadway. And now we’re bringing it to the Bay Area, adopted home of author Alice Walker.

Walker, the eighth child of sharecroppers, was born in Georgia and came to northern California in the late 1970s. Her novel, The Color Purple, introduces us to Celie, a young woman who reclaims herself from racism and abuse. In 1983, it made Walker the first African-American woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Also that year, Marsha Norman won the Pulitzer for her play ’night, Mother. Norman’s book for the musical version of The Color Purple honors its characters’ redemptions as well as their pain and conflict. As in the novel, we see Celie’s abusive husband, Mister, crash toward self-awareness; Shug Avery’s warmth, not only the sensuality recognized by Spielberg’s film; and the generous measure of love that heals Celie’s battered heart. “It’s wonderful to see my characters in their fullness,” Walker affirmed, pleased with the show’s focus on her original intentions.

Just as Walker let Celie tell her story through letters to God, the songs of The Color Purple empower her to call out from a uniquely visceral place. That’s the work of pop songwriter Allee Willis, R & B artist Brenda Russell and record producer Stephen Bray. Though they’d previously collaborated on other projects, none of the trio had written for musical theatre before. Hearing their first stab, Walker noted that “they’d identified the upbeat spirit of the story,” and chose them as composers.

Scoring The Color Purple required a shift in thinking for the team. Whereas a pop song tends to repeatedly rephrase the same idea, songs in a musical must drive the storyline forward. “The lyrics need to be action driven, involve some behavior; it can’t all be interior,” affirms Bray.

Over four and a half years, Willis, Bray and Russell used everything from sophisticated computers to sandpaper to find their rhythms, which took shape in the blending of gospel, pop, blues and funk. By recording their brainstorming sessions, they captured each moment of epiphany while riffing chords on the piano and singing lines from the novel aloud. “This was not the kind of songwriting I’d ever done,” Willis said, “but it feels so natural.” The long gestation of their freeform methods has birthed a score so relentlessly dynamic and rich in spirit that it fully expresses Walker’s themes.

She comments, “It’s wonderful to hear music with so much bottom in The Color Purple. That’s why African-American music was called soul music; the emphasis is always on what brightness is emerging from the shadow. What progress is being made by the soul.”

In a time of war and worry, this is the kind of progress for which we’re all reaching. Brought to Broadway by an unexpected confluence of artists inspired by Walker’s story, The Color Purple is a celebration of human resilience that we’re meant to share together.

See The Color Purple at the Orpheum Theatre October 9 – December 9.
Click here to hear how producer Scott Sanders talk about how he got this whole thing started.

photos by Paul Kolnik

Back to SHNews