About the Play:

The Colored Museum has long been a favourite of acting teachers for Female Monologues, Male Monologues, and Male/Male Scenes.

The Colored Museum is a full-length comedy with music by George C. Wolfe. Taking place in a cultural museum, the 11 living "exhibits" explore African-American identity in an exhibition of stereotypes. The Colored Museum has electrified, discomforted, and delighted audiences of all colours, skewering stereotypes and redefining what it means to be black in contemporary America.

The Colored Museum – which takes the form of a series of sketches – challenges stereotypes old and new with historical representations and political observations. Climb aboard for a madcap and stinging journey through 11 hilarious looks at African-American culture – from the depths of the Celebrity Slaveship to the spinning heights of Harlem. The play's inventive milieu presents an excellent opportunity for flashy monologues. The entire cast is African-American.

The eleven sketches or "exhibits" in The Colored Museum are: Git On Board (1 female); Cookin' With Aunt Ethel (1 female); The Photo Session (1 female, 1 male); Soldier With A Secret (1 male); The Gospel According to Miss Roj (2 male); The Hairpiece (3 female); The Last Mama-On-The-Couch Play (3 female, 1 male, and a narrator); Symbiosis (2 male); Lala's Opening (4 female); Permutations (1 female); and The Party (4 female, 1 male). George C. Wolfe put himself on the theatrical map with this landmark comedy. He went where few writers had dared to go before him, fearlessly exploring what it means to be black in America, with a keen eye for humour and little regard for political correctness.

The Colored Museum premiered in 1986 at New Jersey's Crossroads Theatre. Within six months, the play scored big at New York's Public Theatre winning the Dramatists Guild/CBS New Play Award, the Hull-Warriner Award, the Oppenheimer/Newsday Playwriting Award, the Audelco Theatre Award, and the HBO/Theatre Communications Group Award. It has since played London's Royal Court and Duke of York Theatres and was one of the first contemporary African-American plays produced at regional theatres in the US; a marked departure from the period musicals and history plays more frequently staged.

Cast: 3 female, 2 male, 1 girl (doubling)

What people say:

"Mr. Wolfe is the kind of satirist…who takes no prisoners. The shackles of the past have been defied by Mr. Wolfe's fearless humor, and it's a most liberating revolt." — The New York Times

"Brings forth a bold new voice that is bound to shake up blacks and whites with separate-but-equal impartiality. True satire." — Newsweek

"A sophisticated, satirical, seriously funny show that spoofs white and black America alike." — New York Magazine

"Has the potential to bring to black theater the type of nasty, naked racial revelation once found only in Richard Pryor monologues or Funkadelic albums." — The Village Voice

"If Wolfe's themes – of remembering the past and understanding stereotypes – are heavy, he wisely avoids didacticism in favor of lightness of tone. The Colored Museum turns out to be a fun house." — Washington City Paper

About the Playwright:

George C. Wolfe is an African-American playwright and Tony Award-winning director of theater and film. Born in Frankfort, Kentucky, he earned degrees in directing from Pomona College and playwriting from New York University. He served as Artistic Director of The Public Theatre from 1993 until 2004. He lives in New York.