Broadway Bound
Born For This: The BeBe & Cece Winans Musical Broadway Bound
As an adolescent, I found comfort in the lyrics of several gospel artists, one of which was BeBe Winans. In the mist of my storms, I was able to find refuge in the smooth uplifting melodies of his albums, which ministered directly to my situations.
Charles Randolph-Wright
With that said, it brought me great joy to hear that the director of Motown: the Musical, Charles Randolph Wright, announced that he has written and is to direct the world-premiere stage musical Born For This: The BeBe Winans story at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta, GA debuting January 2016 and running through February 14, 2016.
Born For This has been in the works for nearly a decade, and has been stated to showcase BeBe and CeCe Winans “heart-warming and hilarious journey toward self- discovery”.
Detroit natives BeBe and CeCe Winans, youngest siblings of the Winans family dynasty, experience the ultimate in culture shocks when invited to join Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker’s Praise The Lord Network television show. The teenaged Winans become not only television celebrities, but also the “adopted children” of the Bakkers, integrating TV evangelism in Pineville, North Carolina. As BeBe and CeCe encounter fame, fortune, and even a young Whitney Houston, BeBe must learn to balance his desire for success with his true calling.
This production featuring new music written by BeBe, will reportedly incorporate a new generation of Winans to play the young brother and sister.
The full cast has not yet been released. However, during a private reading/workshop that had media mogul and Broadway producer, Oprah in the audience, as well as legendary Cicely Tyson, a few familiar faces were seen. Those faces included Syndee Winters, Alan H. Green, Dyllon Burnside, & Bryan Terrell Clark.
Bebe Winans recently did an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution talking about the development of this new musical. Check out a snippet below:
On sharing his memories: “So much of it is a coming-of-age story, where we left home (in Detroit) and all the things we knew, which was pretty much a black-oriented school and church. And we were thrust into the South, where there were 4,000 (PTL
Ministry) employees and four of them were African-American.
“It was a life-changing experience. We dealt with being away from home, we dealt with racism, we dealt with little things that were so different. Sports to me was basketball. And I found myself rock-climbing. I didn’t know that was a sport…”
On collaborating with “Motown the Musical” director Charles Randolph-Wright:“He’s very, very talented, and he knows my story, so it was easy to trust him. One thing I never will forget, he brought (a scene) to me, and it talked about threats on me and my sister. And I said, ‘I don’t remember no threats, Charles.’
“Then I was having dinner with Jim Bakker, who is still an incredible friend and father figure to me, love him with all my heart. And I gave him some of the script and told him that I had allowed Charles to take some leeway and that he had put in that we had had some threats. And Jim looked at me said, ‘Oh, there were a lot of threats.’
“He had protected us from them.”
On his Broadway hopes for the musical: “That’s the Alliance’s goal, that’s our goal, that’s the Arena Stage’s goal. Oh yes, it is Broadway bound!”
READ THE ENTIRE INTERVIEW ON ARTSCULTURE BLOG HERE
Just the idea of this production hits home for me, seeing that I spent much of my spare time in church. Strongly encourage those in the Atlanta area to mark this production on their calendars. I know how much of a blessing his music was to my life and I can only imagine what blessings are in store for those who take the time to support this man of God. I’ll be first in line when it comes to Broadway.
Broadway Bound
Jeremy O. Harris’ Slave Play Will Transfer To Broadway & Put Him in the History Books
Slave Play by Jeremy O. Harris will transfer to Broadway making the 30-year-old playwright the youngest black man in history to have a play produced on Broadway and only the sixth Black writer to have a new play on Broadway in the last decade.
A recent graduate of the Yale School of Drama, Harris wrote Slave Play his first semester in the graduate playwriting program there. New York Theatre Workshop produced the world premiere in 2018 that lead to controversy and critical acclaim from those who had and hadn’t seen it.
Producers Greg Nobile, Jana Shea, Troy Carter, Level Forward and Nine Stories Productions announced the play will transfer to the Golden Theatre this fall.
The limited 17-week engagement beginning performance previews September 10th with an official opening scheduled for October 6th. Robert O’Hara will reprise his role as director with casting for the Broadway run announced at a later date.
The Old South lives on at the MacGregor Plantation — in the breeze, in the cotton fields…and in the crack of the whip. It’s an antebellum fever-dream, where fear and desire entwine in the looming shadow of the Master’s House. Jim trembles as Kaneisha handles melons in the cottage, Alana perspires in time with the plucking of Phillip’s fiddle in the boudoir, while Dustin cowers at the heel of Gary’s big, black boot in the barn. Nothing is as it seems, and yet everything is as it seems.
You can currently read the published play in the July/August issue of American Theatre Magazine
The creative team for the production includes Clint Ramos (scenic design), Dede Ayite (costume design), Jiyoun Chang (lighting design), Lindsay Jones (sound design and original music), Byron Easley (movement), Claire Warden (intimacy and fight director), Doug Nevin (production counsel), and Taylor Williams (casting director). Mark Shacket serves as Executive Producer.
Harris said, “During my very short time being a professional writer, the world I thought I’d inhabit was one at odds with a commercial theatrical landscape; so to see that this play, Slave Play, that interrogates the traumas Americans have inherited from the legacy of chattel slavery and colonization has a place in the canon of work that has made its way to the Great White Way is both exhilarating and humbling. It also articulates that the leaps the community made in the past Broadway season might not have been a fad but the beginning of a new moment for the theatre to once again attempt to represent discursive American theatrical expression not situated solely within the imaginaries of cis white men, but the imaginaries of all Americans.”
Jeremy O. Harris & Robert O’Hara photo by Jenny Anderson
O’Hara said, “I’m thrilled as a black queer artist to be collaborating with another black queer artist on what will be both of our Broadway debuts. I think the idea that I can say that openly and proudly is rather profound given the history of our country and of the American theater, but more specifically Broadway which has had and continues to have a general lack of diversity and diverse stories. I feel that Jeremy is joined today by a whole host of exciting young artists who are telling stories outside the main stem which can now hopefully be presented on the main stem. As the margin slowly becomes the center, I believe a cavalcade of voices one would never expect to be heard on Broadway can be and should be demanded. Slave Play is a complex, challenging and exhilarating piece of work and I look forward to presenting it this fall on Broadway.”
Broadway Bound
Michael Jackson Bio-Musical Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough Will Open in Chicago Ahead of Broadway
The musical inspired by the life of the deceased pop icon Michael Jackson has found its title, Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough. Still in development after a reading in June of last year, the musical, named after Jackson’s classic song from the 1979 album Off The Wall, will incorporate the Jackson music catalog.
Focusing on Jackson’s career in his 20s–30s, Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Lynn Nottage is attached as the book writer and Christopher Wheeldon will direct and choreograph.
Announced by the Michael Jackson Estate and Columbia Live Stage, the highly anticipated musical will have an out of town run in Chicago starting October 29th and running through December 1st, 2019 at Chicago’s James M. Nederlander Theatre (formerly the Oriental Theatre) before transferring to Broadway in 2020.
Pingback: BeBe Winans Born For This is set for a World Premiere