Fantasia Barrino is reprising the role of Celie in Los Angeles as “The Color Purple” tour is scheduled there from February 10-26. The Grammy-nominated singer and Broadway star, most often known simply as Fantasia, the entertainer rose to fame as the 2004 “American Idol” winner. Later that year, she released her debut disc “Free Yourself,” which was certified platinum. Several tours, performances, and television guest appearances later, Fantasia released her second disc in 2006 and on the heels of that release, scored the role of Celie in the Broadway musical “The Color Purple” based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning 1982 novel of the same name by Alice Walker. The ‘Great White Way’ rookie was scheduled for a six-month engagement that was extended thanks to a huge box-office response to her casting. Then she started missing performances that caused the show’s producers to refund tens of thousands of dollars. Fantasia recalled that her first five months on the show seemed to go quite smoothly, but it was month 6 – her original gig end – that she began to wear down and found herself exhausted by the traumatic story of her character’s life coupled with ordeals in her own. So Fantasia left the show to get her life together, but came back because she felt she owed it to people who came to the show and missed her, but there was another reason for her sabbatical from the production. No one, including Fantasia herself, knew that at the end of her initial stint on ‘The Color Purple,’ she had two tumors on her vocal chords.

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