Five stars revive Whoopi’s groundbreaking one-woman show in a can’t miss homage  

 

After years of making do with Pocahontas and Mulan, we got a Black Disney Princess: a beignet-making heroine named Tiana. I caught a matinee with friends from Hampton on opening weekend and we clutched our popcorn in astonishment as Tiana danced across the screen in The Princess and the Frog. We’d spent years waiting for this moment without knowing it. I was well on my way to grown by the time of this historic premiere, too old to don a fluffy green frock for Halloween, but not too big to miss the significance of adding another name to the list of representations I’d grown up with. During my elementary years, there was such a wide array of Black faces on television that I could list the ones who looked like me — Penny Proud, Denise Huxtable, Whitley Gilbert, Hilary Banks — and the ones whose deeper complexions I envied — Dionne from Clueless, Breanna Latrice Barnes from One on One, and Ashley Banks (Hilary’s little sister).

 

It wasn’t an accident that the kids of the mid to late 90s had our pick of television, movie, and professional models to which we could aspire; this was a coordinated response to the gap in the middle of the TV Guide that our parents endured. The 70s introduced a handful of shows about Black families like the Jeffersons, the Evans, and the Sanfords but programming aimed at Black children was yet-to-come. Whoopi Goldberg, who will turn 71 in November, is old enough to be my mother’s elder sister. She, too, was well on her way to grown by the time these representations turned up. By the time she was 29, she’d developed her one-woman performance The Spook Show (which would eventually be retitled Whoopi Goldberg) a collection of monologues that reveal, among many things, the psychic impact of growing up in a representation gap: the unending grapple of knowing you exist, but being unable to find proof outside of your own house or neighborhood. 

 

 

In some way, shape, or form, each of the 5 femmes revived in The Whoopi Monologues — Fontaine, Surfer Girl, Jamaican Lady, Blonde Girl, and Lurleen — detail their rejection of the boxes they’re meant to occupy, the points at which they diverge from colloquial standards, and how that divergence can agitate. Jamaican Lady rankles at a commercial with a slim, barely clothed woman and her straw-hatted neighbors beckoning visitors to the island. Blonde Girl waffles between her mother’s advice to “be happy with what you got” and the social currency of having “long, luxurious hair” like everyone on TV. Lurleen jokes that before women sat around talking on The View (Ms. Goldberg’s long-running daytime TV hosting gig) there was no way to share information on personal care, menstruation, and menopause. 

 

In the original production from 1984, Whoopi Goldberg wrote and performed each character like sketch comedy alter egos. In this revival, each woman is played by a different actor and the team reads like the roster for the 2024 New York Liberty. Every player is dispatched to their full potential. At the helm of the production is director Whitney White, who’s seen success with Black women ensemble shows like Jaja’s African Hair Braiding and women’s stories like the Tony-winning play Liberation. Here, she dismisses the familiar bell curve narrative arc and orders the monologues like a capital W, we start with the flash-bang of a character on edge, embrace young women finding their way on either side of a surprise come-up, and end on the high note of a life that was nearly cut short. Qween Jean’s understated costumes (Saturday Church, Cats: The Jellicle Ball) push the actors to do the storytelling. The more the characters reveal about themselves, the more each outfit makes sense — just like in real life, you can’t judge a book by its cover.

 

 

Each of the fabulous five elicited sincere response from the audience and solicited our participation since they can see us just as well as we can see them. Their stories — fully realized — unfolded like flowers in bloom, peeling back petals and thrusting their most fertile parts skyward so that another living thing might pollinate and grow. Stand out performances were Danielle Pinnock’s Jamaican Lady, retelling her surprise good fortune in patois, teasing out the jokes in every line like a long-time girlfriend on a long-distance call. Kara Young’s Fontaine matched Pinnock’s physical comedy in her depiction of “green beans huddled in a corner” then just as handedly recounted a solemn decline into a nervous breakdown. As comedic as she can be, I’ve longed to see Kara “go there” with her dramatic side. This was the performance I’ve spent years waiting for. Fontaine’s monologue is easily one of the heaviest in the line-up; Young lifts it like something feather-light. But it’s a magnetic Kecia Lewis, whose stage and life experience trumps everyone else’s on stage, who had me tasting tears on my lips. It was all the presence and depth of her performance in Hell’s Kitchen without any distraction; Kecia and the stage are all you’ll need. I’m not sure if her Lurleen monologue was the longest, or if it just felt that way as it reaches from girlhood to menopause (scaring the shit out of me for what’s to come). When Lurleen closed the show with the maxim that we can participate on our knees or standing up, I felt ready to get up and do the hustle. 

 

In a production that’s directed with this much loving care, that’s this well-cast and performed, and feels this much like a family reunion, don’t count on me to find a long list of flaws. I noticed the way the lights framed the scene when Fontaine stood beneath a skylight and the choral music that played when Surfer Girl described going to confession. Consistent use of these light and sound effects for each one could keep unadorned monologues (like Blonde Girl’s) from feeling abandoned. The graphics between the performances that show the actors in their dressing rooms were flashy, but didn’t convey much meaning to me. (I should note that any choices that were callbacks to Whoopi’s original production would certainly be lost on me, since I’ve never seen it.) 

 

 

When Kerry Washington went on Jimmy Fallon in March to discuss her role as a producer and performer in The Whoopi Monologues, she recalled how exciting it felt to see Whoopi’s performance, how she’d memorized explicit lines from the show and got away with reciting them in the house. During press day interviews, every cast member had a similar anecdote about Whoopi’s influence when I asked about Ms. Goldberg’s ability to “trust her imagination enough to build something the world hadn’t yet asked for.” With her dark skin, natural hair, Jewish surname, and audacity, Whoopi gave generations of Black women a gift that she didn’t have the luxury of receiving in her youth: visibility. That she took it upon herself to create world in which she could star — as silly and serious, as self-loathing and self-determined — without ever having seen it done is the very definition of what it means to participate standing up. And now, a new generation of women will know: you can be a princess, you can be post-menopausal and still feel beautiful, you can be a one-woman phenom. The whole world is waiting for you.                     

 

blacklove 🖤 and starlight 🌟

 

The Whoopi Monologues opened at Lincoln Center Theatre on July 13, 2026. The monologues were written and originally performed by Whoopi Goldberg in 1984 and directed by Mike Nichols. This 2026 production was directed by Whitney White and features Kara Young, Kecia Lewis, Dominique Fishback, Kerry Washington, and Danielle Pinnock. I attended a preview performance on Saturday, Jul 11, 2026 and offer my thanks to DKCO&M. 

 

The production will run through August 30, 2026. Tickets for evening shows are $122 and up. Note: Kerry Washington will no longer appear after August 4 and all shows featuring Ms. Washington are already sold out. I recommend still seeing the show without her.