Jasmine Guy thriving in a "Different World"

Jasmine Guy has had a hit TV series, cut an album, performed on Broadway and, more recently, paused to work on her personal life and raise a child. Now the 46-year-old actress who played spoiled college kid Whitley Gilbert on TV's "A Different World" is back in her hometown of Atlanta to direct her first play.

Guy — who won a scholarship to study with the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre's school when she was 16 — seems a natural choice for Ntozake Shange's groundbreaking 1975 choreopoem, "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide / When the Rainbow Is Enuf." Produced by Atlanta's up-and-coming IKAM Productions, the show opens Friday, Aug. 22 at 14th Street Playhouse.

While her 9-year-old daughter, Imani, played in the background, we caught up with Guy before a rehearsal the other day at Spelman Theatre. Dressed in a short denim jacket that accentuated her petite silhouette, Guy shared her thoughts on "For Colored Girls," the political climate in America today and life after "A Different World."

Q: You grew up in Atlanta, didn't you?

A: I was here from third grade to senior in high school. My father taught at Morehouse so we lived across the street from the college, and I danced at the Spelman school. So, like, from age 8 to 12, I was here everyday at the campus. This is weird, because I did recitals in this theater. It's very much a homecoming in that sense.

Q: So you got your education here, even though you never went to college here?

A: Exactly. I thought I was going to Spelman. The dance started it all. Then I went to Northside School of the Arts. I think I was 12 when I told my parents I wanted to do this as a profession, and that's from seeing Alvin Ailey here every year. I tell people the first time I ever got happy was in the theater, looking at (Ailey's) "Revelation." And I got that feeling. And I said, "That must be what those people feel in church." And I realized that was my calling.

Q: Looking back, do you think "A Different World" was a defining moment in your life?

A: It was just part of a constant roll that I had been on. I understood that the unfolding of dreams came from hard work. So it seemed like a normal balance of my life. Little did I know you can still work hard and still not get ... (she trails off). That lesson I hadn't learned yet.

Q: "Colored Girls" is your directorial debut, isn't it?

A: Yes. And I'm having a ball. It's the perfect piece for me, because there's poetry and monologue and character. But there's also dance. And it's kind of wide open. It's not like a musical where the pieces are set. So my challenge has been to make the music and dance organic — just like it's part of our culture. Not "OK, now it's time to do a dance number."

Q: Tell us more about your vision for the piece.

A: I really wanted a multi-generational cast. I didn't want everybody under 30. As I explained to them, we interpret pain differently. Yes, some of us are hardened and bitter and callous. But some of us are hurt and open and vulnerable. And some of us are wounded and do not heal: We are broken. And some of us heal to the love of other people. So I have to be sure that these ways of being in pain come through.

Q: How do you feel about race relations in America? We have an African-American presidential candidate. Have we turned a corner?

A: I always felt like the generation after me, which I call the hip-hop generation .... I thought that music, that genre, that language was universal for those kids. It was the first time they crossed those racial barriers, and they don't think like we do. They think like, "Why are you making such a big deal about that all the time?"

So I felt like it started with them, and now the way they communicate is not in terms of color. It may be in terms of class. The disparity I think now is a class issue, and I think the lessons we have lost in the black community are going to be up to us to turn around. I don't think it's going to be a national concern anymore. Because in Barack Obama, there is no more excuse. "I could never be president."

Well, yes, you can. So now what?

SHOW INFO:

Previews 8 p.m., Aug. 21. Opens Friday, Aug. 22. Through Aug. 31. $15-$35. Produced by IKAM Productions at 14th Street Playhouse, 173 14th St. N.E., Midtown. 404-914-7936, ikamproductions.com