The Color Green Gets You into The Color Purple

By Roland Lara on Sep 26, 2005 5:59PM

Opes is getting in on the Great White Way. They’ve made The Color Purple into a musical, and it has its Broadway opening in December. Oprah is getting on board as a producer and an investor – to the tune of more than $1 million out of a $10 million production cost.

As you probably remember, La Oprah was in Stephen Spielberg’s movie version of the Alice Walker novel, a role for which she nabbed on Oscar nod (she competed against co-star Margaret Avery (“Shug”), though they both lost to Anjelica Huston in Prizzi’s Honor.).

P.S. and by the way: The Color Purple shares the dubious record with The Turning Point for the most Oscar nominations without a single win: 11. That’s just an fyi.

But back to the new musical: it opened to bad reviews in Atlanta last year, and since then has undergone revisions, including a title re-write. It’s now called Oprah Winfrey Presents: “The Color Purple.” Chicagoist speculates that fronting 10% of the budget let’s you have some say. Why couldn’t The Grand Ole Oprah have outbid the Macy’s folks? Chicagoist could totally live with Oprah Winfrey Presents: Marshall Field’s.

What Chicaogist is not sure it can live with is a musical version of The Color Purple. It sounds like a Second City sketch. Why don’t they do the same to all sorts of other tearjerkers? We always thought Sophie’s Choice could do with a big chorus number. Or throw some jazz hands into Schindler’s List.