Mariah Lyttle is Celie in The Color Purple at TPAC.
The Color Purple is the 2016 Tony Award® winner for Best Musical Revival! With a soul-raising, Grammy®-winning score of jazz, gospel, ragtime and blues, The Color Purple gives an exhilarating new spirit to this Pulitzer Prize-winning story. Don’t miss this stunning re-imagining of an epic story about a young woman’s journey to love and triumph in the American South.
The 2019-20 North American tour of the Tony Award-winning Broadway revival, The Color Purple, will stop in Nashville for a weekend run in Andrew Jackson Hall of the Tennessee Performing Arts Center from Friday, March 27 through Sunday, March 29; March 27 at 8:00PM, March 28 at 2:00PM and March 29 at 1:00PM and 6:30PM.
Based on Alice Walker’s 1982 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Color Purple is a story about a young woman’s journey to love and triumph in the American South. This joyous American classic features a soul-raising score of jazz, gospel, ragtime and blues. The Color Purple is adapted for the stage by Tony and Pulitzer winner Marsha Norman with music and lyrics by Brenda Russell, Allee Willis and Stephen Bray.
This acclaimed new revival, and the first international production, opened in London at the Menier Chocolate Factory in July 2013, before transferring to Broadway in 2015 where it ran through January 2017. The production received two 2016 Tony Awards, including Best Revival of a Musical. The production has also received a Grammy Award for its Original Broadway Cast Recording and a Daytime Emmy Award for a cast appearance on The Today Show.
The musical covers three decades of Celie being an oppressed black woman living in Georgia in the early to the mid-twentieth century. By the end of the story, you witness the transformation of a woman fighting back to regain her self-worth and confidence. The Color Purple’s emotional subject manner, violence and abusive story line were frequently challenged. However, it’s now a positive example that helps others overcome the strife of an abusive relationship by finding your healing spirituality in God.
The tour reflects the designs from the Tony-winning revival. The Color Purple has production design by Doyle, costume design by Ann Hould-Ward, lighting design by Jane Cox, sound design by Gregory Clarke, and hair and wig design by Charles G. LaPoint. Musical supervision is by Darryl Archibald, with music direction by Jonathan Gorst.
Cynthia Erivo gave a memorable emotional, Tony Award-winning performance as Celie in the 2016 Broadway revival of The Color Purple, an uplifting story about the triumph of the human spirit over prejudice, dominance and adversity. Though hers were certainly some big shoes to fill, we’ve finally found out who’s primed to fill them for the 2019-20 North American tour, which make its way to TPAC’s Jackson Hall March 27-29.
Mariah Lyttle, Sandie Lee and Chédra Arielle will lead the tour as Celie, Shug Avery and Sofia, respectively. Get tickets for The Color Purple at TPAC.org. Disclaimer: Contains strong language, sexual situations, and mature subject matter.
Thanks to Michael Aldrich/TPAC, Submitted by Tennessee Performing Arts Center.
