As she directs the rehearsals of Ntozake Shange’s classic choreopoem “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow is Enuf” the summer, Jasmine Guy tells Buzz she’s keeping the dress code casual.

“We’ve been in our sweats the whole time so far!” Guy conceded on the red carpet of the Atlanta Urban League luncheon recently. “We’re having fun though.”

Guy is directing Nicole Ari Parker, Robin Givens and Nevaina Rhodes in the True Colors Theatre production set to run July 12 to August 9 at the Southwest Arts Center.

"Colored Girls" actresses Nicole Ari Parker and Nevaina Rhodes discuss the upcoming production with their director Jasmine Guy (center). Photo by Richard L. Eldredge/AJC staff

“It’s a phenomenal project,” Guy explains. “It’s about dusting off your dreams and pushing past the pain in life.

Parker and Rhodes say its helpful to have Guy, a fellow actor (perhaps most famous for her role of the inimitable Whitley on the 1980s sitcom, “A Different World”) sitting in the director’s chair. “She’s amazingly giving as a director,” Rhodes says. “But she can also be a taskmaster when necessary!”

Added Parker about the emotional material in “Colored Girls”: “I’ve been rehearsing for three days and I’ve cried for two-and-a-half of them. The monologues are affecting me in different ways. What Jasmine brings into this as a director who’s also an actor is that she understands the essence and the subtlety of what we’re trying to achieve. She’s very respectful of the material but she gives us the flexibility to own these words as well.”

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