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Reprieve for Tony-nominated Broadway show?
A grassroots social media campaign is giving hope to the Tony-nominated play "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf," which is set to close early.
NEW YORK - Monday's news that the show "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf" had just been nominated for seven Tony awards was made bittersweet by last week's news that, due to poor ticket sales, the show would be closing May 22 — three months earlier than planned.
Theater journalist Ayanna Prescod loved the show.
"I was so moved by it," she told FOX 5 NY.
So moved that she tweeted an offer: a free pair of tickets to women of color who want to see the show. She had no idea that tweet would not only be retweeted but her offer would be matched. Again and again.
"This was like a flood," Prescod said. "And I was like, 'Oh my god, this is like some type of movement that just started.'"
Ticketing app TodayTix offered to drop its service fees. And as of this past weekend, the show's official ticket platform, Telecharge, has built an option on its website to "gift" a ticket.
"We want to send as many women of color, nonbinary, trans people of color to this show as possible," Prescod said.
So the campaign has purchased more than 100 tickets.
Tendayi Kuumba is in the show's cast.
"I heard about it just through social media myself," Kuumba said. "I feel like a mix of emotions. You know, it's a beautiful way of community coming together to support each other. "
But on the other hand, she said it speaks to a larger problem: that Broadway is often out of reach for too many.
"How can we have this space already open and how can we have this accessibility already there without it having to be an S.O.S. all the time?"
Their Zoom interview for FOX 5 NY was the first time either of these two women had connected.
"I'll just say thank you," Kuumba said to Prescod, "for, you know, opening another way of community organizing."
Prescod thanked Kuumba for her performance.
"But also, just seeing Black women on stage is something that was so impactful for me, especially Black women collectively on stage — on a Broadway stage," Prescod said. "What you guys are doing on stage is otherworldly and needs to be seen."
Might the show now be able to stay open past May 22?
The show's press representatives passed on this message: "It's under serious discussion amongst producers at this very moment."