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Celie is off to the side with her sister Nettie and her father. She's in labor, pregnant for the second time by her father. He takes away her child and all her hopes and dreams. Her father hands her over to Mister, who needs a woman to help him run his house and help with his unruly children. She's described as an ugly girl who works like a man.

The former hip-shaking Fantasia walks bent over, as if with a broken spirit. She's convincing when she looks up to the heavens and says, "God forgot about me."

"The Color Purple" is not just the story of Celie. It's about a sisterhood, women sticking together and helping one another. Celie thanks God for Sofia, who says "hell no" when she doesn't feel like doing what a man says. The uncompromising Shug Avery, who is Mister's lover, is a woman who gets her way.

The sisterhood is obvious in the audience in well. So many women of all hues have come to see this show that during the intermission, the usher opens the men's bathroom for them.

The men can wait. It's about women and their power tonight.

By the end of the play, Celie is reunited with her sister Nettie and the children her father gave away. She sings "I'm Here," the song she performed at the Tony Awards last month.

I'm thankful for

loving who I really am

I'm beautiful

Yes, I'm beautiful

And I'm here.

At the end of the performance, we scramble to our feet for a standing ovation.

"It was a sister thing not just with her and her sister, Nettie," Brown says later. "The women supported each other and lifted each other. Celie lifted Sofia when she was in jail. Shug lifted Celie."

Brown's review reflects that spirit: "Fantasia was fantastic but so was everybody else. Sofia and Shug ... it wasn't the Fantasia show but that was OK. You got a full performance. When we were clapping at the end, we were connecting with all of those performers."

That includes NaTasha Yvette Williams, who plays Sofia. Like Fantasia, Williams is making her Broadway debut, and she's a North Carolinian, hailing from Fayetteville.

"My sister said she got Fantasia to wave at her," Brown says. "She was making eye contact with the audience. She's kind of personable. I didn't expect her acting to be very good but I was pleased with how she did."

The stage door

At the side of the theater, a line forms at the stage door of people waiting to get a peek at Fantasia.

A North Carolinian emerges -- not Fantasia but Ruby E. Crawford, a 9-year-old Greensboro native who plays several roles, including young Nettie and one of Mister's daughters. She talks about waiting for a callback for a movie with Eddie Murphy. She mentions her role in "Scripture Cake," a movie about two sides of a family divided by race and misguided law. The film's title comes from the name of a Southern dessert.

The crowd wants to know more about the Murphy movie, in which she might play the daughter. But it's hush-hush. All Ruby will say is "it will be a major motion picture."

Ruby says goodbye to NaTasha Williams and the other performers -- women giving props to one another.

We wait awhile longer, then Ruby's mother tells us: Fantasia and her daughter left by another exit. We're not too let down. We're happy that the author of "Life Is Not a Fairy Tale" seems to be living one.

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