For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When the Hue Gets Too Heavy

For Black Boys Who Have Considered Suicide When The Hue Gets Too Heavy offers up the variegated experiences of young Black men in non-Black spaces.

It works through a masterful weaving of poetry, music and movement, inviting audiences and readers to witness and empathize with the inner lives of every hue of young Black man.

Originally inspired by Ntozake Shange's 1974 poem For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow is Enuf, the play masterfully blends realism with poetic and imaginative elements, and visual with aural spectacle evident in the songs, dance sequences, poetry and dialogue, to create an original and richly textured piece of total theatre.

It was first performed at the New Diorama, London, and was revived in the West End three times subsequently.

The play is published here as a Student Edition alongside commentary and notes by Izuu Nwankwo, who interrogates the play's themes around Black masculinity, identity, community and survival; its use of theatrical form; space and setting; its six main characters; its multi-sensorial texture; and its deliberate absence of stage directions and the implications for performance. It also includes an original interview with Ryan Calais Cameron.