Look What God Has Done...

I never thought the The Color Purple would be my favorite book, my favorite, movie, and my favorite musical. For those of you who hate or can't stand the singing in musicals, you don't know what you're missing. The Color Purple is by far the best musical I've ever seen, and I've seen my share of professional productions. The singing was A-MA-ZING!!!! All of the cast members sang their hearts out, it was truly incredible.

I must admit that when I heard about the possibility of a musical version of Alice Walker's The Color Purple, I was very skeptical. I just felt they should leave the story alone. I didn't want some songwriter to compose cheesy songs for such a compelling and complex story. Fortunately, my nightmare did not come true. Now, many of you know I'm a big fan of singing, only good singing. Well, the singing voices of The Color Purple were GREAT, and I'm not exaggerating. I still can't get over the tight harmony, especially by the three key church ladies (you'll know what I mean if you go see it).

What amazes me is that the two adaptations of the book (the film and the musical) both embody the characters and tell the story effectively, but in different ways. The musical follows the book a lot closer than the movie does but it still incorporated most of the key lines in the movie. The relationship (yes, a love relationship) between the characters Celie and Shug is a lot more in-depth than the way the movie depicts it. It was a little shocking at first, but it is Broadway, men kiss men and women kiss women a lot on those stages. All in all, the story was told perfectly. So for me, the musical was everything I expected plus more.

I just want to say to everyone, but in particular the black people in my generation, we have to support black people in the arts. Those of you may not know that this show was about to be canned until Oprah's money and pull and producer credits came about. The show started in Atlanta (I guess they figured the black folks down there would support it) back in 2004 but it wasn't receiving a lot of publicity and it's success looked hopeless. Needless to say, it's receiving all of the publicity and rave reviews in the world now.

I'm just glad to say that I was able to support this production. Hopefully everyone will be able to see this musical.

And like the finale of the musical says, "Look what God has done."