L-R: Fahlonee Harris-Tate (Lady in Red), Michele Rogers (Lady in Blue), Kristin Poe (Lady in Green), Nicole Brewer (Lady in Brown), and Deanna Dykes (Lady in Purple). Photo by Joshua DeMinter.

The seven actresses enter the stage dressed all in white. And, as they speak to each other of first loves, of dancing, they dress each other and themselves in single shades, a yellow bracelet for one, a green necklace for another. A few minutes later, the Lady in Orange comes back with full-color costume, and all the colors fill in, vividly.

So, too, do the colorful worlds and voices of the seven women fill out vividly through the 75 minutes of for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf, a Fringe offering from the brand new group, Colored People’s Theatre Collective. The playwright, Ntozake Shange, wove these women’s stories together in a clutch of poems, an experimental form that won a Tony in 1977.

Far from feeling dated, Shange’s words have life in the heartbreaking voices of the CPT actresses at work here. The Lady in Yellow, played by Lauren Du Pree, laughs and teases about her childhood in the first monologue, then comes back later, dancing sensually to The Lady in Purple’s narration. Purple, played by Deanna Dykes, fluidly narrates many parts, including a tale of three friends’ trouble with one man. Nicole Brewer’s Lady in Brown endears herself with her eight-year-old self’s obsession with Toussant Louverture. Michele Rogers, in Blue, inhabits the life of a “colored Puerto Rican” danceaholic, a woman who aborted in secret, and a Harlem inhabitant, trapped in a universe of “six blocks.” And the emotional breakdown of The Lady in Red, performed by Fahnlohnee H. Tate, by the end of the play had everyone, onstage and off, in tears.

If there has to be a theme of these women’s voices put into a poem-slash-play, it would be of taking back. Nikki Strong, in Orange, explains “ever since I realized there was someone called a colored girl, an evil woman, a bitch or a nag, I been trying not to be that.” By the end, when all the girls have gathered together again, Kristin Poe as The Lady in Green amusingly, playfully tells us “somebody almost ran off with all of my stuff!…almost ran off with me.” Poe explains that it’s her stuff, and delivers it with such insistence that it’s clear she’s reclaiming what it means to be a “colored girl,” a woman, by the very act of poetry itself.

The first show of CPT’s inaugural production was magical, when the stakes were high. It’s a safe bet that the rest of their fringe run will be as powerful.

for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf has four remaining performances: July 16, 21, 23, and 24 at the Studio Theatre’s Mead Theatre.