Latest / The BSB Podcast / Exclusive Interview: Danae Ross, Sonya Ellis, and Nisa Miller of 'For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf'

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Exclusive Interview: Danae Ross, Sonya Ellis, and Nisa Miller of 'For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf' · The BSB Podcast

• 0:00
  The Chocolate Box Theater Company in partnership with Planet Ant Theater is shining a light on a topic that isn't talked about nearly enough in For Color Girls Who Consider
• 0:07
  Suicide When the Rainbow's Enuf And today we're speaking with three of the cast members of the show, Danae Ross, Nisa Miller, and Soyna Ellis.
• 0:13
  Thank you three for being here.
• 0:15
  Hello.
• 0:16
  Thank you for having us.
• 0:18
  We are so excited.
• 0:18
  Again, thank you for being here.
• 0:20
  This show seems super important and totally what we need to be talking about right now.
• 0:24
  And so Danae I'm going to start with you.
• 0:25
  Just kind of what drew you into wanting to audition for this show?
• 0:30
  Yeah, so I think that the community that we have and for colored girls was built very organically.
• 0:34
  We all were part of the Detroit Repertory Theatre Actors Workshop.
• 0:38
  They put on an amazing 10 week program and then a showcase at the end.
• 0:42
  I met a couple of folks through this and was invited to audition based on my performance there and the relationship that we built.
• 0:50
  But beyond that, I've always really enjoyed this piece.
• 0:54
  I encountered it as an English major at Wayne State back in the day.
• 0:57
  And actually had the opportunity to meet into Ntozake Shange and attend a talk and have an autographed copy for my own daughter.
• 1:04
  ah So this has been something that has been near and dear to me.
• 1:07
  These topics are really important.
• 1:09
  I'm also um a PhD candidate at Michigan.
• 1:12
  And so I do work on Black maternal mental health and trained as a social worker.
• 1:17
  So um all of these stories of Black women are stories that I've encountered through my own embodied experience, as well as through working with folks in the community and in my own
• 1:26
  family.
• 1:26
  It's just, you know.
• 1:27
  Yeah, my community.
• 1:29
  So not only have you had such a long relationship with this project, but it sounds like it's even kind of, you know, it's part of your day-to-day work life as well.
• 1:38
  It absolutely is.
• 1:39
  So it's just an embodied way of understanding what I do in the intellectual space every day.
• 1:46
  Nisa, what drew you to wanting to be a part of this production?
• 1:50
  just the importance of Black women and sharing our stories and hearing our voices.
• 2:05
  For me, I had had a conversation with the director at the repertory theater at the showcase, as Danae formally mentioned.
• 2:15
  And I think at that point, it was a far away thing.
• 2:18
  But then when I received the email,
• 2:20
  to audition.
• 2:22
  I was really excited about it.
• 2:24
  I haven't done a lot of theater in a long time, in a long time.
• 2:28
  But this was a book that was so special to me during my adolescence and through high school, just something that I kept close to me, identified with.
• 2:41
  And it almost seemed like a dream being able to be in a production of it and perform it.
• 2:47
  It's just been so special.
• 2:49
  And then to start
• 2:50
  rehearsing with CJ and to see her vision of it was just incredible, just out of this world.
• 2:58
  So it's almost a full circle thing with me that I'm able to now be in this production of something that I've held close for so many years.
• 3:11
  that's awesome that this is a full circle moment, like you said, that you're getting to come back to this piece and this work that is, I mean, that has to feel really good to be
• 3:19
  able to come back to it.
• 3:21
  Yeah, yeah.
• 3:23
  And just it's opened up such a interpretation for me now as.
• 3:29
  a much older woman.
• 3:30
  You know, I had one perspective in high school that this is getting me through certain events, but now it's as a much broader scope.
• 3:54
  Yeah.
• 3:56
  So in answering that question, think that um one of the things that I think about is Trisha Rose's work, Longing to Tell.
• 4:03
  And in the intro to that work, she says it is not um the telling of a story in a particular way that will defy the stereotype, right?
• 4:11
  But it is the telling of the story from so many different vantage points that then makes the stereotype really like cave in on itself.
• 4:18
  It's a self-destruct button, right?
• 4:20
  And so I think that one thing about this story um is it's not one narrative, it's a choreo poem.
• 4:25
  So it's meant to be embraced with movement and it's meant to be embraced with rhythms, right?
• 4:30
  And not only just the rhythms of our voices, but we have song integrated and what have you.
• 4:34
  um But it's told from several different vantage points.
• 4:38
  There's a story in it for everyone.
• 4:39
  There are so many different stories.
• 4:41
  And the way that our director um actually um envisioned this was to not just break us up by the color.
• 4:48
  but to break us up by the monologue.
• 4:51
  So we're playing several different characters, telling several different stories.
• 4:55
  Even as castmates, we are not sticking to one story throughout the course of time.
• 4:59
  We're representing many, many different stories, many, many different people.
• 5:03
  And at one point I even represent a male perspective, right?
• 5:07
  So I think that there's a story in it for everyone.
• 5:11
  There's representation for a lot of different experiences.
• 5:14
  And so I don't think that there's one story that you can tell.
• 5:17
  It taps into a lot.
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  Nisa, with that kind of storytelling then, what is it like?
• 5:23
  again, it's not like you have one character from start to finish.
• 5:26
  You're kind of embodying a lot of different people, lot of different experiences.
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  How do you enter into a show like that?
• 5:32
  with your experiences, you know, because we're playing so many different roles.
• 5:37
  It's like we're exploring all this pain and all these experiences.
• 5:40
  And like I said before, we've all lived through every single word, every single experience, every single pain that's reflecting on that stage.
• 5:49
  We've literally lived through it.
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  So just with our own experiences.
• 6:06
  you
• 6:06
  the experiences are heavy, but some of them are are light.
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  You know, I have a monologue in the beginning that's ah just just recalling
• 6:20
  A life event and and really in a pleasant way in a pleasant way, but an experience that maybe a lot of women have had so.
• 6:30
  It it is just a myriad of feelings.
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  There's there's humor.
• 6:36
  There's oh life experiences that may be pleasant that may be unpleasant that ah maybe things that we learn from.
• 6:48
  And so it.
• 6:50
  So.
• 6:50
  actually grow.
• 6:52
  I mean you grow from beginning to end.
• 6:58
  Yes, yes.
• 6:59
  yeah.
• 7:00
  And so there's the story, of course, of someone who's going to a club in the evening and wanting to see her favorite um artist.
• 7:07
  There's the story of someone who had an experience on graduation night.
• 7:11
  There's the story of the mother who loses her children.
• 7:15
  There's the story of the moment where this person, all of the pain that they felt is culminating.
• 7:20
  and their decision to like go on or not.
• 7:23
  There are stories of folks who are friends and they all like the same person.
• 7:30
  They're all interested and what happens with that.
• 7:33
  There are stories about so many different things.
• 7:37
  And so there's no one storyline.
• 7:39
  The through line is um the experience of black women, femmes.
• 7:44
  Yeah.
• 7:49
  And their voices.
• 7:50
  we have with men.
• 7:52
  Mm-hmm.
• 7:53
  It seems like the connective tissue is kind of like you said, experience of black women, also the themes that of, I was looking at this like joy and trauma and all those different
• 8:02
  things that connect all like that is kind of the narrative, the thread through it all.
• 8:06
  Yeah.
• 8:13
  Yeah.
• 8:16
  So then when you have a production that isn't like this, and Danae I'm start with you, just how do you develop a sense of character throughout the show then, when there's so
• 8:24
  many different stories going on here?
• 8:29
  So are you asking how I develop a sense of character when I have so many stories or when I only have one to tell?
• 8:36
  Okay, yeah, I think that with a production like this, um so art kind of overlaps, it speaks to one another.
• 8:45
  So you have the transcendental period in writing, you have that as well in art, right?
• 8:49
  And they're reflecting one another.
• 8:50
  So for me, I listen to music that reflects one character.
• 8:55
  I actually like will go and do a dance class.
• 8:58
  I actually will really deeply reflect on who this person is.
• 9:01
  I'll watch historical movies and pieces.
• 9:04
  I'll read about them.
• 9:05
  But it's really a sitting with the words.
• 9:10
  Really like it's a spiritual process of really understanding the experience and trying your best to bring voice to.
• 9:20
  um experiences where folks are often times disempowered.
• 9:24
  So I think that there are a lot of methods and tools that I use, I think that, you know, culture research, but then also sitting with and consulting the ancestors' spirit is
• 9:36
  important.
• 9:38
  And Nisa, is that kind of is similar for you.
• 9:39
  Like, is that like how you kind of develop that sense of character for the show?
• 9:43
  Yes, definitely.
• 9:44
  And just understanding the words and then relate it to my life because like I said, every single word in the play I have experienced, you know, so just.
• 10:08
  Yes, yes.
• 10:10
  I actually just going back again, because again, I read this repeatedly when I was younger and now going back and reanalyzing this and realizing the difference between
• 10:24
  a child basically analyzing and feeling this poetry and an adult analyzing these experiences of the woman that I've gone through are different.
• 10:35
  And so then getting in the place of these people, whether it's, uh yeah, I go from a young woman losing her virginity to a very seasoned, tough woman really looking for love.
• 10:53
  and having been hurt so many times.
• 10:56
  And so it's really a transition as you're going through it, seeing your transitioning into these different places that you've lived before and just for me, reanalyze what they
• 11:10
  really mean.
• 11:11
  So you kind of mentioned with one of the stories of like finding love when you've been hurt before.
• 11:16
  So this show does have aspects of joy and does have aspects of like pain.
• 11:21
  ah Sonya how do you feel like you, like how does the joy coexist with the pain in this production?
• 11:28
  after the pain, there's always this inner triumph or this resolution.
• 11:36
  And a lot of the monologues have pain, but they also show this hope.
• 11:42
  and this resiliency that Black women have had through years and years through many events.
• 11:49
  So you're always feeling that resiliency.
• 11:52
  You're always feeling that hope.
• 11:54
  Even when a mother loses her children, how does she carry on from that?
• 11:58
  And she does.
• 12:00
  So I think that shines through even on the scenes that are very tragic.
• 12:07
  But there is hope in that we will keep moving.
• 12:10
  resilience is so important, you know, and as a psychologist, we're always looking for like resilience factors of like when something tough happens, how do you find the next thing to
• 12:19
  kind of carry you on?
• 12:20
  Yeah.
• 12:23
  you
• 12:26
  and the agency, right?
• 12:29
  I found God in
• 12:30
  myself is one of the most prolific lines in this entire play.
• 12:34
  ah And she is in that moment naming herself God.
• 12:37
  She's naming the God within herself.
• 12:39
  And I think that that is something that we've seen in black feminist traditions for quite some time.
• 12:44
  And there's some level of agency in that.
• 12:46
  think resilience is certainly something that implies agency, but they're also naming the injustices, right?
• 12:52
  So they're not just taking resilience and saying like, I'm building this within myself without holding the systems accountable.
• 13:07
  Mm hmm.
• 13:10
  in some of those pieces.
• 13:11
  And I think the other way that the joy and pain commingle in this, right, or coexist is through the sisterhood.
• 13:20
  Though they're aching, right?
• 13:24
  Though they are in some scenes feeling as if they are dying inside.
• 13:32
  Okay.
• 13:34
  always all on stage together.
• 13:36
  No one is ever alone.
• 13:38
  So as much pain as you see in this production, you also see the sisters, the angels always surrounding whoever is aching, whoever is having their whole world upheaved, right?
• 13:49
  There is never a moment where we are on stage alone in that.
• 13:52
  And I think that that is a metaphor for how black sisterhood works, ah community works.
• 13:59
  Community is our joy amidst all of the things that we experience in our day-to-day lives.
• 14:04
  Yes.
• 14:05
  That is that is so great Danae and I was just telling me so before we started filming I was speaking to someone else who was in a production of this and How hard it was for her
• 14:16
  to get through that abortion scene?
• 14:18
  on stage by herself.
• 14:21
  And that we're always together, you always feel that you never feel alone.
• 14:27
  so the show really emphasizes the sisterhood more than other productions where you're just sending people out alone to do a monologue.
• 14:37
  It's totally different.
• 14:40
  Yeah.
• 14:41
  And this is not this is not the versions that we've seen before, one of which is quite sensationalized.
• 14:47
  I think a lot of people think about for color girls and they're thinking like, I'm to go home in tears, in shambles and what have you.
• 14:55
  But this is for color girls as directed and envisioned by a black woman.
• 15:01
  ah Right.
• 15:03
  And this is very different from the ways we've seen it.
• 15:06
  The sisterhood element is really lifted up.
• 15:09
  And really like the one of the first things that we were asked when we came into um rehearsals was to find the humor in the piece.
• 15:19
  For Color Girls is a very heavy piece, but we were really charged with the task of finding the humor and not to trivialize the struggles that folks are undergoing, but to also
• 15:28
  represent the joy that throughout history, black folks have found even in these moments of peril and struggle and what have you.
• 15:36
  So I think that that's something that is represented here.
• 15:43
  It's.
• 15:44
  something to keep in mind with this one is it's for color girls like you've never seen it before.
• 15:48
  We actually had like the director of the um actor's workshop at the Detroit Repertory Theatre tell folks who were in Chicago, it's worth the drive even if you've seen it before
• 15:56
  because you've never seen it like this.
• 15:58
  So.
• 15:59
  And that's a huge statement about what this production is going to be.
• 16:04
  Mm-hmm.
• 16:04
  Wow.
• 16:06
  With you had mentioned, Danae, about finding uh the humor, being told to find the humor in the script and the work, was that difficult at first to kind of find that humor?
• 16:16
  Or did it come pretty naturally to find it when you were kind of going through it?
• 16:20
  Yeah, first, think um I will say our director has an eye for that.
• 16:25
  So she really was like, there's a little place where we can put some humor in there.
• 16:28
  And she has this big, great, boisterous laugh that goes along with it.
• 16:32
  So I think that she found a lot of the humor.
• 16:34
  think it's more difficult to find it in isolation.
• 16:36
  But I think once we came together, there are some scenes like that.
• 16:40
  we actually were just doing something wild in rehearsal and it just got blocked into the scene.
• 16:46
  Like when we were dancing one time, we just started dancing and having a good time.
• 16:50
  And she's like, that actually works.
• 16:52
  So a lot of it is really organic in that way.
• 16:55
  And so I think that because we have a good sisterhood within our cast, that we were able to find the humor, not just by like staring at the words on the page or like reciting our
• 17:05
  lines.
• 17:11
  Absolutely.
• 17:28
  uh So with this being a collection of choreo poems, ah Sonya I'm gonna start with you.
• 17:36
  Is there one that resonates the most with you with right now where you're at in your life?
• 17:42
  wow!
• 17:43
  Right now!
• 17:45
  Right now!
• 17:48
  Gosh, you know, I can't take a certain event that's on me right now, but I will say...
• 18:01
  That I think the the monologues I.
• 18:04
  That I do.
• 18:06
  I've internalized and remembered certain events in my life and and they've given me a perspective.
• 18:14
  A different perspective on things that have happened to me now years later and then doing the monologue.
• 18:22
  I'd say it gives me.
• 18:24
  A better understanding of some things that have happened in a different perspective.
• 18:29
  And.
• 18:31
  Actually lighten my load a little bit and some things that were heavier.
• 18:35
  I can't say that there's.
• 18:38
  Anything that embodies.
• 18:40
  Me right now, but.
• 18:43
  I will say that.
• 18:45
  It has given.
• 18:48
  A greater meaning to some things events that I have gone through and I've been able to look back on them.
• 18:55
  And either get a new understanding or.
• 19:00
  lighten it a little bit.
• 19:01
  Yeah.
• 19:02
  Yeah.
• 19:04
  Nisa, is there one that really speaks to you right now.
• 19:08
  As of right now, like some piggyback off Sonya, lived it, been there, done that.
• 19:15
  As of right now, would be the very end.
• 19:17
  I found God in myself.
• 19:20
  I went through all of this personally and I found God in myself.
• 19:24
  So yeah, I would say like Sonya said, we've lived it.
• 19:28
  Far as right now would be that very end of the play.
• 19:31
  Cause I made it, you know?
• 19:33
  Okay.
• 19:52
  Okay.
• 19:53
  so yes, I will say I think that probably it is that very ending for sure.
• 20:04
  I think that that very ending is a scene oftentimes that is very heavy for folks to watch, but it's also a rebirth.
• 20:14
  It's also a decision.
• 20:15
  It's a decision.
• 20:16
  It's a choice that she makes and she has the agency and the power to make that choice.
• 20:23
  And I think that we all need those reminders every day, um particularly now, oh of the agency of the power that we still have within ourselves.
• 20:35
  And I think that um the other one of the ones that I do is probably now I love somebody more than.
• 20:42
  And I can think of that as um a poem or a monologue that I'm saying to this new journey of like acting.
• 20:50
  This is my debut performance.
• 20:52
  And so it's really like, now I love somebody.
• 20:55
  Ooh, Teyama Maskey when you play your flute.
• 20:57
  And I'm saying that too, um when I get to get on stage, when I get to perform, when I get to be with my castmates, when I get to...
• 21:04
  So I think that it's now I love somebody more than, now I love this beautiful art.
• 21:10
  more than a lot of things.
• 21:13
  yeah.
• 21:13
  ah
• 21:15
  That's Why no, I just I put when we came back, I felt like I just.
• 21:43
  So.
• 21:44
  of socks, like all back.
• 21:47
  Here we are.
• 21:48
  It's just, I mean, it's just so internalized and so comfortable now.
• 21:54
  And some of the lines that tripped up, you know, the first time we met and then the next time it just glowed, it was just right here.
• 22:02
  I think it'll always be right here now.
• 22:06
  It's the rest of my life, really.
• 22:10
  I can now pull this.
• 22:13
  pull it out.
• 22:16
  wow, it's, it's an addition to my soul now.
• 22:19
  can't even say I wonder, you know, I've never had that honor of being someone on a Broadway play that has done something for years and years and I can't imagine how
• 22:33
  ingrained that is because it feels really ingrained.
• 22:36
  It's just part of my spirit.
• 22:37
  Like things all just pull up.
• 22:40
  Even in life situations, pull up and think about.
• 23:04
  Yes.
• 23:05
  don't need the vulnerability, the just finding yourself and you know, things that you would never do in front of people and you do, know, singing.
• 23:14
  I don't sing, but now I'm singing.
• 23:16
  It's like,
• 23:18
  And she has an incredible voice.
• 23:26
  Incredible voice.
• 23:29
  Yeah.
• 23:30
  m
• 23:40
  love when you say that as well too about like, there is lot of therapy with acting.
• 23:46
  um You'd never catch me up on stage, because I stage fright, but like there is getting up there and putting yourself in a very vulnerable position in front of everybody multiple
• 23:56
  times throughout a run.
• 23:58
  know, there's what, six, at least six shows for this one.
• 24:00
  Like that is, like you're baring your soul.
• 24:04
  Like that is therapy in a very, very upfront way.
• 24:07
  Yeah.
• 24:09
  It's definitely exposure therapy in some ways.
• 24:11
  I saw a reel on Instagram just I think it was yesterday or the day before where someone said her goal for 2026 was to fail a thousand times.
• 24:22
  And I think that that's really significant because I think that when you do this, you know that at some point you're going to forget a line.
• 24:47
  Yeah.
• 24:49
  where you mess up.
• 24:51
  But then what you also know is that you have the opportunity to repair in that moment.
• 24:55
  So it teaches you over and over again to repair and to recover.
• 25:03
  you
• 25:04
  kind of goes back to what you were talking about with like sisterhood, also like with, when you have cast and stuff like this, you, like, it feels like you're being like, like
• 25:14
  maybe you messed up and you kind of self evaluating pretty bad, but then you have everybody else there to be like, that was great.
• 25:19
  That was fantastic.
• 25:19
  And they make you remember that this is like a group.
• 25:22
  This is a community thing.
• 25:23
  This is a sisterhood that's we're doing this together and that there's no, no such thing as failure in that.
• 25:28
  Yeah.
• 25:28
  Right.
• 25:30
  Just keep it moving.
• 25:31
  Keep It Movin', absolutely.
• 25:34
  Speaking of movement, there's a lot of movement and dance in the show.
• 25:39
  How do you feel like the movement and dance tells the story in ways that maybe words can't?
• 25:46
  I feel like that is, as I was looking this up, there's a lot.
• 25:50
  There's a lot going on here, and so that has to speak volumes in ways that maybe we're not even saying.
• 25:56
  Yeah.
• 25:58
  I'll let one of them take that because I have two left feet and that's the ongoing joke.
• 26:04
  feet teach me the steps again.
• 26:13
  So So.
• 26:23
  doing great dancing.
• 26:26
  Danae is a fabulous dancer.
• 26:30
  We refer to her to refresh us.
• 26:33
  Thank you.
• 26:35
  Thank you.
• 26:40
  Listen, I am a graduate of Renaissance High School and definitely studied with Gina Ellis for a bit who would she was she was definitely tough on us when it came to dance and she
• 26:52
  was really wonderful and um amazing training um and that.
• 26:57
  stage above.
• 26:58
  But yeah, so I think that the movement is really um important in communicating things that would otherwise take much more time to communicate, right?
• 27:08
  So there are moments where we're bringing you to a point of nostalgia through the movement and through the music.
• 27:14
  We're channeling different times, right?
• 27:16
  So this music takes us, it's time travel, right?
• 27:20
  So we've got songs from the 19
• 27:24
  30s, right?
• 27:24
  We've got songs from the 1950s maybe.
• 27:26
  So we've got songs from all different places.
• 27:29
  And so I think that the movement helps with that and the music does as well.
• 27:33
  I also think that there are moments where, and actually I want to say that this production is probably really heavily focused on movement, even more so than some others that I've
• 27:46
  seen, because all we have is the chairs.
• 27:50
  We have four chairs.
• 27:52
  and seven people on stage.
• 27:54
  And we're on stage for the entire time.
• 27:57
  Everyone is, the most part, doing something at every moment.
• 28:00
  There are very few moments where we stand still for a minute at a time.
• 28:04
  There are very few moments.
• 28:06
  So the movement is everything.
• 28:07
  We're constantly moving.
• 28:08
  And not only are we moving individually, but again, you're seeing the shapes that we create as an entire cast.
• 28:14
  So I think that there's one level of movement where we're thinking about it in terms of how we move individually.
• 28:20
  and the choreography, what we're intended to do, what we do do.
• 28:23
  But then there's another level of movement where we're moving together and we're thinking about the shapes that are created and how those connect to the themes.
• 28:29
  There's one scene in particular where we take the shape of angels wings around a few people who are.
• 28:36
  So there are a lot of things that are communicated through the movement.
• 28:39
  This is a piece that you probably need to see a few times in order to find all of those little treasures that CJ planted.
• 28:47
  uh That's our director that she planted um in this production.
• 29:05
  Yes.
• 29:15
  Just finding their voices, loving their soul.
• 29:18
  and the importance of sisterhood.
• 29:20
  We do not have that anymore.
• 29:22
  The importance of sisterhood.
• 29:25
  Sonya, how about for you?
• 29:25
  What do you want audiences to take away?
• 29:27
  I want them to see that this is something different.
• 29:33
  maybe, and I know a lot of the audience members have seen this before, and I hope they get a new meaning out of this and a new hopefulness out of this.
• 29:43
  And just no matter what happens, we have community.
• 29:48
  We have sisterhood, have people and we can endure for this.
• 29:52
  You can keep moving no matter what happens.
• 29:57
  .
• 29:59
  this takeaway?
• 29:59
  Um,
• 30:01
  certainly want to like re-emphasize the themes on community.
• 30:05
  um But I think that in addition to that, or and I think in addition to that, think...
• 30:12
  I want folks to take away that no matter where you are, and particularly as Black women, Black femmes, um I think that like, you deserve to be seen.
• 30:22
  We deserve to be seen.
• 30:24
  We deserve to be heard.
• 30:26
  No matter what our stories are, no matter how painful they are, no matter how ugly our scars are, we deserve to be able to show up in our fullness authentically and
• 30:34
  unapologetically in any space we so choose to enter.
• 30:38
  And so I hope that everyone who sees this
• 30:56
  Okay.
• 30:57
  Okay.
• 30:58
  it's not just a performance we really want you to take away that that you're loved and that you deserve to show up and be seen and tell your story.
• 31:08
  Yes.
• 31:09
  Thank you all three for being here, been such a pleasure talking with all of you.
• 31:13
  you so much.
• 31:25
  Yeah.
• 31:26
  uh