Natural Hair Hits Off-Broadway
By Song Duchess
It was only a matter of time before the natural hair phenomenon swept the New York City stage. The Off-Broadway production of Supernatural: The Play stars actress and comedienne Kim Coles as a popular blogger who takes audience members down memory lane and introduces them to the cast of characters she has met- and what a cast it is.
To sit in the audience of Supernatural: The Play is like entering someone’s most private thoughts. You are a privileged eavesdropper to some dynamic monologues and you’d be hard pressed to give up your fly on the wall seat. With each woman that takes the mic, you don’t know where you are going to go until you realize there are so many place to go.
Coles guides you through the struggles of a cancer patient, a woman with Jewish and Black heritage, a YouTube sensation and the other women who come together to get to the root of their hair dilemmas and the core of who they are and who they are not.
We get up close and personal with seven women altogether who are forced to confront their definition of beauty in an image obsessed world, leading them on a natural hair journey and finding themselves.
While the role was not written for her, in real life Coles has made a splash in the world of natural hair by sharing her natural hair journey online, she too has met thousands of women who want to snap a picture with her because she embraced her natural hair – in Hollywood. “We collected the rich experiences of women who have had a tug of war with their hair and won in their own right,” says Candace Kelley who wrote the play with her sister Audrey Kelley and Gilda Rogers.
Candace is highly regarded in natural hair circles and has been natural for 3 decades. She has extensively researched natural hair and has been up close and personal with hundreds of women for this project. She also has a line of natural hair care products called Curl Prep in Whole Foods
The play is the most recent ‘product’ of these three writers and has received rave reviews. “This play is a wonderful metamorphosis and women have taken to it because it lovingly embraces what it so authentic – our hair,” says Rogers who added that writing the play was liberating.
Supernatural: The Play made its debut in New Jersey at Crossroads Theater and Luna Stage. Recently, Los Angeles got a taste of the supernatural Upstairs at the Kirk Douglas Theatre and audience goers were thrilled.
“It was great to hear the actresses say they got the chance to play real women, not caricatures of women,” said Audrey Kelley, who also directs the play.
Supernatural: The Play hits New York City on May 25th at 4pm and 7pm and May 26th at 3pm, at the Players Theatre, 115 MacDougal Street. Of course with thousands of natural hair sites out there, the Blogosphere is already chatting it up.
For more information about the play and to read reviews visit www.supernaturalproject.org
