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How "American Idol" Fantasia Barrino became the lead in "The Color Purple" musical has the makings of Broadway legend.

Until a producer invited her to watch the show in early 2007, the High Point native says she had never even seen a Broadway play.

So, when producer Scott Sanders and director Gary Griffin took her to dinner afterward, Barrino had no idea that they would offer her the lead role of Celie.

"He (Sanders) pulled out this paper, and it had my name on the marquee," Barrino says from her Charlotte home.

"I am still not really getting it that they are trying to ask me to be in the play. But I loved the picture. I said, 'Can I have that picture?'

"He said, 'Yes, if you be my Celie.' "

It took Barrino a month to say yes.

That gamble paid off, transforming Barrino from TV's 2004 "American Idol" winner and recording artist to critically acclaimed Broadway star.

Next week in Greensboro, Barrino will reprise the role that she played on Broadway and at the Kennedy Center in Washington.

Now 25, she will make her stage debut in the Triad when "The Color Purple" national tour comes to War Memorial Auditorium for eight shows.

"We perform on everybody else's stage, and now I get to come home and perform on mine," she says in her high, raspy speaking voice that conveys constant enthusiasm.

She will be joined in the cast by Greensboro native Horace V. Rogers. An N.C. A&T graduate, Rogers plays the character Grady, understudies the male lead Mister and sings in the ensemble.

Based on Alice Walker's 1982 novel, the musical centers on Celie, a young African American woman in early 20th-century Georgia who finds the strength to triumph over adversity.

That theme should sound familiar to anyone who knows how Barrino's soulful singing voice and stage presence took her from high school dropout and unmarried teen mother to music star.

She told her story in her 2005 book, "Life Is Not a Fairy Tale," and the Lifetime TV movie of the same name in which she played herself.

"I ended up dropping out of school in ninth grade, having a child at 17, having all those low self-esteem problems, being in an abusive relationship," Barrino says.

The character Celie, too, lives a difficult young life, having children as a teenager, being mistreated by Mister.

"Celie at the age of 14 had a lot going on, so I salute her sometimes," Barrino says. "She didn't realize until the end that she was such a strong young lady, a wise young lady handling all of those things.

"I always tell people I probably couldn't do the part if I couldn't step into her shoes and reach back on some of the things I have been through."

But when she first played the role on Broadway in April 2007, "I was so nervous, I don't know how I made it to the end," Barrino says.

When the cast sang the last "Amen," she recalls, "I said to myself, 'Oh, my God, I made it through.' The audience all went up on their feet and gave us a standing ovation. They were rooting for me, too."

So did the critics.

"She's pretty terrific," The New York Times said.

Yet despite the praise, Barrino says she was "miserable" during that nine-month New York run as she coped with business and medical issues ---- and with Celie.

"She began to take over my life," Barrino says. "I didn't know who Fantasia was. I didn't know how to come out of character.

"At that time, I had so much stuff going on with my management and lawyers and people trying to sue, at the same time carrying Celie's weight."

There were reports that she missed nearly 50 performances on Broadway. Although she disputes the number, she attributes her absences in part to the later discovery of two tumors on her vocal cords.

"If I did miss a show, I ended up in the emergency room getting IVs, not even knowing the whole time what the real problem was," she says. "Then I would go back on the stage and push, push, push."

After surgery, she says, "There is nothing wrong with my vocal cords. Thank you, Lord."

But when she was asked to join some shows on "The Color Purple" national tour, "I was like, 'Oh, wait a minute. I don't know about that,' " Barrino recalls.

She thought about the commitment, discipline and sacrifice it would take.

She decided that she had to do it ---- for Celie.

"If I didn't play the role, I probably would have gave up when everything was going bad," Barrino says.

"But she also taught me something, and I know she is touching somebody else, those people in the audience. Somebody just needs to hear some words of encouragement."

Playing Celie is different now, she says, "because I got all that dead weight off me that Fantasia was going through."

She hasn't lost her touch.

When she played Celie for part of the summer at the Kennedy Center, the Washington Post called her "a wonder ---- a natural."

"Fantasia wears Celie as a heartbreaking second skin," reviewer Peter Marks wrote.

Rogers, her fellow cast member, calls Barrino "a perfectionist and consummate professional. She sings and acts each performance as if they were her opening night on Broadway."

Barrino is playing only on select stops on the show's national tour. The tour hadn't planned the Greensboro stop until a few months ago, when the Chicago run was reduced from two weeks to one and Greensboro was added.

"We are getting calls statewide because people want to see Fantasia in the role," said Scott Johnson, deputy director of the Greensboro Coliseum.

Barrino says she is glad that those who didn't see her Broadway shows can see "not only me but this great story and this great cast that gets on stage every night and gives 150."

Before resuming the tour that will take her to Chicago, Greensboro and Atlanta this month, Barrino took a break at her Charlotte home with her 8-year-old daughter, Zion, and other family members.

On this August morning, her slate includes three phone interviews, a class to prepare for high school equivalency tests and picking up her daughter.

The week before, she fit in a visit to the Triad, buying furniture at Furnitureland South, visiting her grandmother and dining at Stephanie's restaurant in Greensboro.

"I had to get me some good old Southern food," she says.

She has plenty of projects on her plate for 2010, too.

"2010 is going to be a very promising year for Fantasia," says Brian Dickens, who became her manager after her Broadway run.

VH-1 is filming a reality series about her daily life, set to debut in early 2010.

She has recorded most of her third album, scheduled for release next year; a single is expected to be released this fall. Her concert schedule is booked.

She will reprise her role as Celie in February in Los Angeles. There is talk that the musical will become a film starring Barrino, but she says she hasn't heard anything more.

She contemplates taking college classes in North Carolina.

She also contemplates how her life has changed in five years.

"Somehow I muster up the strength to keep it moving," Barrino says. "The good outweighs the bad, and I am doing things I never thought I would do."

Contact Dawn DeCwikiel-Kane at 373-5204 or dawn.kane@news-record.com