"The Color Purple" brought pop-hits composer to Broadway

First it was a best-selling epistolary novel, honored by a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Award.

Then it became a big-budget Steven Spielberg movie — nominated for 11 Academy Awards, despite mixed reviews.

Then, in 2005, Broadway beckoned. And Alice Walker's "The Color Purple" emerged as a hit musical that ran two years in New York, and arrives at Seattle's Paramount Theatre on national tour next week.

Walker's story of the abused Southern woman Celie (played in Seattle by Jeannette Bayardelle), an "ugly duckling" who blossoms through her love for hard-loving blues singer Shug Avery (Angela Robinson), has an ardent following of fans who have embraced the tale in one medium or another.

One admirer is singer-songwriter Brenda Russell, who collaborated on the score for Broadway's "Color Purple," along with Allee Willis and Stephen Bray. (The show's book was written by noted playwright Marsha Norman, and its dances are choreographed by Donald Byrd, head of Seattle's Spectrum Dance Theatre.)

"I read the novel when it came out, and actually auditioned to play Shug in the movie," said the ebullient Russell, on the phone from her Los Angeles home. "My audition was a total disaster!

"But being a black woman, the story was dear to me because it brought up a lot of stuff about my own family roots. I have ancestors who were slaves. That's not an easy subject to delve into, and neither is the subject of black people during segregation. But Alice Walker is brilliant, and the book was so well done."

Russell was a prolific pop composer but a musical-theater novice when Scott Sanders, lead producer of "The Color Purple," hired her and cohorts Willis and Bray to concoct the blues- and ballad-driven score. As a vocalist she had half a dozen albums to her credit, and had written tunes for a long list of stars, including Donna Summer, Luther Vandross and Janet Jackson. (Russell's song "Get Here," for which she received a best female pop vocalist Grammy nomination, was also a hit for Oleta Adams.)

"The Color Purple" took five years to develop and was a creative stretch for Russell. "I learned there's a certain expectation the Broadway audience and critics have, of a certain type of writing and communication," she explained.

"I didn't really know this medium when we started, so I watched every musical I could on DVD, and saw a lot of shows live. I found out I really love musicals! Particularly those by Stephen Sondheim, who was extremely inspiring to us."

The difference between writing pop cuts and show tunes? "When you're doing a song for some amazing artist like Luther Vandross or Tina Turner, they just take it and sing it. They don't say, hey, can you redo that chorus?

"I remember crying in early meetings for 'Color Purple,' when we were told to cut this song out because the scene's changing, or do something different for that character. But by the end of the process it was like, OK, throw it out! Next? In theater you have to be willing to cooperate and collaborate."

One person who didn't directly collaborate, but offered encouragement, was author Walker.

"She made herself very available to us," recalled Russell. "We had dinner with her early on, and she asked what our plans were for the show.

"Allee, who has a wild sense of humor, said, 'I think it will have an all-white cast.' It took Alice a minute to realize she was kidding!"

Walker did say she'd like to see one character handled differently than in the Spielberg movie. It was Celie's initially harsh husband, Mister.

"He's so villainous in the film, and Alice wanted to see Mister become more like what she expressed in the book," said Russell. "She sees him as a man who changes and redeems himself, and I think that comes through more in the musical."

After "Color Purple" debuted in Atlanta in 2004, to mixed reception, its producers struggled to raise enough backing to move it to Broadway. An "angel" stepped in: talk-show host Oprah Winfrey, who won an Oscar nomination for playing Sofia — the feisty wife of Mister's son Harpo — in the movie.

Winfrey reportedly poured more than $1 million into the $10 million musical, giving it not just the cash but her considerable celebrity clout.

Initial reviews of the Broadway run were also varied, "The Color Purple" sold well to a diverse crowd, and the tour is booked into next summer.

Russell is taking a breather from Broadway but open to future theatrical projects. And she has no regrets about her first. "I'm very proud of it. But had anyone told me the show was going to take five years of my life, I might have protested. I'm so glad I didn't know!"

Misha Berson: mberson@seattletimes.com