Lionsgate has picked up feature rights to Ntozake Shange’s stage play “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf.” Music video helmer Nzingha Stewart will direct and adapt the film. The play was first performed back in 1975 then made into a 1982 telepic for “American Playhouse” which starred Shange, Laurie Carlos, Trazana Beverly, Alfre Woodard and Lynn Whitfield
The play consists of 20 poems which tell of love, domestic abuse, abandonment among other issues faced by many black women. Lionsgate said at its announcement on Wednesday - “leadership role in producing and distributing a diverse roster of motion pictures about black characters.”