T’Shan Williams is to take over from Seyi Omooba as Celie in Leicester Curve and Birmingham Hippodrome’s production of The Color Purple.
As previously reported, Omooba was replaced after a social media post caused “significant and widely expressed concerns”.
Williams played Heather Duke in Heathers the Musical at the Theatre Royal Haymarket in 2018, Radio 1 in Tony Kushner and Jeanine Tesori’s Caroline, or Change, a Chichester Festival Theatre production at Hampstead Theatre, also in 2018, and Queen in Cy Coleman and Ira Gasman’s The Life at Southwark Playhouse in 2017 for which she won the Off-West End award for best female in a musical.
She joins Joanna Francis as Shug Avery, Ako Mitchell as Mister, Simon-Anthony Rhoden as Mister’s son Harpo, Karen Mavundukure as his wife Sophia, Danielle Fiamanya as Celie’s sister Nettie and Delroy Brown as Pa.
The cast is completed by Geoff Aymer, Owen Chaponda, Perola Congo, K M Drew Boateng, Danielle Kassaraté, Anelisa Lamola, Rosemary Annabella Nkrumah, Jochebel Ohene MacCarthy, Landi Oshinowo and Jo Servi.
Directed by Tinuke Craig, the regional UK première of The Color Purple will open at Curve from Friday 28 June until Saturday 13 July. Press night will be Wednesday 3 July. It then moves to Birmingham Hippodrome from Tuesday 16 until Saturday 20 July.