PHILADEPHIA — Jenna Ford Jackson remembers how her high school drama teacher tried to persuade her to do a reading from Alice Walker's "The Color Purple" for a student competition.

The Warner Robins teen wasn't buying it. "This is so vulgar," she told her mentor. "I can't do it."

Paul Kolnik (ENLARGE)
Angela Robinson, as Shug Avery, and Jeannette Bayardelle, as Celie, perform 'Too Beautiful for Words' from 'The Color Purple.'
Paul Kolnik (ENLARGE)
Felicia P. Fields, as Sofia, and Stephanie St. James, as Squeak, are on 'The Color Purple' national tour.
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ONSTAGE "The Color Purple." July 15-Aug. 3 $29.50-$67.50. Theater of the Stars, Fox Theatre, 660 Peachtree St. N.E., Midtown. 404-817-8700, ticketmaster.com "The Voice of Alice Walker." Tributes, readings and a discussion with Walker, led by Atlanta writer Pearl Cleage. 5 p.m. July 20. $20. Rich Theatre, Woodruff Arts Center, 1280 Peachtree St. N.E., Midtown. 404-733-5000, nbaf.org RELATED LINKS • Photos: History of 'The Color Purple' • Musical has evolved since Atlanta world premiere • Photos: 'The Color Purple' debuts on Broadway • Knight, Marsalis highlight National Black Arts Festival lineup • NBAF offers link to roots • Blog: ATLarts • Go to the theater

Fast forward a few years, and the Chicago-based actress — who understudies the flamboyant Shug Avery in the national tour of "The Color Purple" — laughs at her naivete. When the Georgia native heard the Broadway musical was going on the road, she jumped at the chance to work in a show that feels so close to her heart and home.

Today, Jackson is an elegant, statuesque woman who relishes the chance to slide into Shug's slinky gowns and fancy feathers. But as a young woman growing up near Walker's hometown of Eatonton, she remembers being "tall, skinny, lanky and awkward." More like the tentative, invisible Celie, perhaps, than the sophisticated, sexually adventurous Shug.

"There are a lot of people who struggle with self-identity, including me," Jackson says, explaining why "The Color Purple's" themes of abuse, neglect, confrontation, empowerment, independence and redemption have sparked such universal appeal.

You would indeed be hard-pressed to find a story that has inspired a more loyal and impassioned following than "The Color Purple," which was adapted into a 1985 film by Steven Spielberg and developed into the ambitious Broadway musical that had its world premiere at Atlanta's Alliance Theatre in 2004. The most ardent fans keep dog-eared copies on their shelves and can spout key lines at random.

"If you haven't lived through a story like that, then you know someone who has," says 24-year-old Chauncey Jenkins, who graduated Cobb County's Pebblebrook High School in 2002, performed in the Broadway company of "The Color Purple" and is now on tour. "It's like when you listen to good songs on the radio, and you are like, 'Ah, man, I'm going through that. I've been through that.' You associate yourself with that. You care about their story."

The romantic triangle of Celie, Mister and Shug, the woman they both love, evokes strong emotions from men and women, gay and straight, across all racial borders. And nearly everyone has vivid opinions on how their favorite (or most detested) characters have made the transformation from page to stage, how the musical pastiche by Brenda Russell, Allee Willis and Stephen Bray compares to Spielberg's film, how the dark epistolary novel works as musical comedy, and how the piece has changed from production to production and cast to cast.

As the national tour arrives in Atlanta, here are some insights and observations on these and other topics.

The challenge has always been how to turn the compressed, internalized emotion of the novel into musical theater. "It's so raw and in your face," Atlanta native Stu James, who plays Harpo, says of the novel. "Gary Griffin, who is the director, said this is Alice's first draft. She never went back and did the editing. She invited the ancestors in ... and left it in its raw form, which I think is pretty cool."

The movie breezes over Celie's sexual discovery. "We show you more of the relationship between Shug and Celie," says Warner Robins native LaTonya Holmes, who understudies the roles of Celie and her sister Nettie on tour. "The movie doesn't do that. It doesn't go that deep."

True. But Shug's breakout song, "Push Da Button," is more about catching a man than satisfying a woman.

The film's treatment of black males — particularly Celie's abusive husband, Mister — was offensive to some. "I think a lot of African-American men had such trouble with the movie," says Felicia P. Fields, who originated the role of Sofia in Atlanta and continues to play the character. But, she wonders, "if you are not that kind of person, why are you so offended? This woman is writing from her experiences."

Marsha Norman, who wrote the musical's book, seems to try to force a happy ending, portraying Mister as a changed man who wants to make up with Celie. In the novel, Mister's transformation is more subtle and mysterious.

Harpo and Sofia

In the musical, Celie's stepson, Harpo, steps from the background to become a symbol of the shift in power between men and women. He beats Sofia, but she beats him back. "Alice Walker describes him as the new man, the Renaissance man," James says.

The musical also turns Harpo into eye candy, and the Harpo-Sofia angle threatens to upstage Celie. Says Fields: "I remember them at a meeting saying this show doesn't take off until Sofia's entrance, and that's a long time."

Where are the white people?

In the book, film and the Alliance production, Sofia collides with the white mayor's fawning wife, Millie. As rewritten for Broadway, the bloody conflict happens offstage. "They decided I have to beat myself up," Fields jokes.

"That's a part I miss about the story. I think it was much more powerful when you could actually visualize the whites."

Too many cooks?

By all accounts, the stress level was high as the show moved from Atlanta to Broadway with numerous revisions. "There's so many lost songs," says Jeanette Bayardelle, who now plays Celie. "I remember when we were in rehearsals for Broadway how it was just every day. It was like a producer would come in, say Oprah would come in. We would never know what was going on behind the scenes. We would just know we got new music. 'OK, song so and so was cut. This is what we are putting in.' ... I mean, before we went to Broadway, it was tense."