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Charles Randolph-Wright on the Heroes Who Gave Him Permission to Dream

February 20, 2023/0 Comments/in Charles Randolph-Wright, For Television, For Theatre, News /by Divatamer Updates
The ‘Motown: The Musical’ director and ‘Delilah’ executive producer on the power of creative role models
February 8, 2023 | Written By Charles Randolph-Wright | AdAge
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Charles Randolph-Wright speaks on stage at “Motown: The Musical” on April 30, 2015, in Hollywood. Credit: Rich Polk/Getty Images for Hollywood Pantages

Ad Age is marking Black History Month 2023 with our third-annual Honoring Creative Excellence package. (Read the introduction here.) Today, our guest editor Billy Porter turns the spotlight to Charles Randolph-Wright, the noted director (of theater, film and TV), producer, screenwriter and playwright.

“Charles Randolph-Wright opted out of medical school to go into theater,” says Porter. “Years later his mother told him, ‘You have healed far more people with your work than you ever could have as a doctor.’ Ain’t that the truth. Charles is a healer, a unifier and a truth-teller, so his voice had to be part of this series.”

Here, Randolph-Wright shares his thoughts on the heroes who gave him permission to forge his own creative path.

I grew up in a small Carolina town during the very segregated ’60s. Fortunately, I descend from a long line of professionals, entrepreneurs and activists who gave me the greatest gift to face this still-unequal world—the gift of permission. And through that gift, I was able to find my heroes who showed me that as a Black man, my journey would be more difficult, and I would have to work harder and always have to prove myself. My heroes showed me that the journey would be worth it.

In the summer of 2010, I received a phone call regarding meeting Berry Gordy about directing a Broadway musical based on Motown. Berry Gordy. I was speechless. In my world of permission, Berry Gordy was one of my idols. There were very few people who looked like me that owned mega businesses. Watching Mr. Gordy’s creations in music, film and TV told me that I could one day tell those kinds of stories.

Mr. Gordy always said that everything he created came from his desire to make people happy, and that resonated so much to this young kid from the rural South. I didn’t live in Detroit, but Mr. Gordy made me realize that geography does not limit your dream. After a first phone call with him, I was flown out to meet in his house in Bel Air. And yes, driving up those hills felt like I was approaching Oz. My main thought was, “If I don’t get this job, I at least got inside his house!”

We had an extraordinary lunch, and my life changed in an instant. Mr. Gordy tells this story that he said to me, “You’ve never done a big Broadway musical.” And I immediately responded, “Neither have you.” To this day I can’t believe I actually said that to the Berry Gordy, but I was never more confident about working on a project. I knew every song. I knew the B sides of songs. I had read every book. Motown was in my DNA. I knew that it was more than music—it was a movement. And several years later, we had a huge hit on Broadway, all over the U.S. and the U.K. We assembled an unusual team for Broadway—a Black producer, director, writer, music director, choreographer, stage manager, costume designer, female creatives and more.

Charles Randolph-Wright. Credit: Photo by Heather Gershonowitz

The man that gave me permission as a child gave me one of the greatest opportunities of my career, which enabled me to give many others opportunities.

Through Mr. Gordy at the opening of “Motown” in Los Angeles, I reconnected with Sidney Poitier—the other man who gave me permission in my youth. Years later we had meetings and I was asked to write his story. Again, speechless. Sidney Poitier. Mr. Poitier passed before he could see “Sidney”—my words about his words—performed, but I hope that the story I’ve created also will give back the permission he long ago gave me.

I first met Mr. Poitier at a show I co-wrote and directed starring the brilliant Jenifer Lewis. He took us to dinner after, and the entire time I was in shock that I was sitting across from him. I finally summoned up enough words to thank him for his inspiration and he responded, “If I have inspired you in any way, you more than paid me back with what I saw tonight.” I remember looking around to see if someone else also heard that, trying to be sure I wasn’t dreaming. Those words I will never, ever forget.

I was the producing director and executive producer (with Oprah Winfrey) of the OWN TV show “Delilah” and had the thrill of shooting in my hometown, employing many people when COVID had eradicated their incomes. The following fall I directed the play “Trouble in Mind,” 66 years after the astounding writer Alice Childress had written it. It was planned for Broadway but canceled when Ms. Childress would not tone down its message. It took me two decades to get it to Broadway, and now we’re making a film of it. I hope that everything I do in the worlds of TV, film, and theater can give permission to those who need it, and especially to those who have been overlooked, like the genius Ms. Childress.

I realize that advertising has that power, that this publication has that power, to help someone envision something that they can attain, that they can be.

Images are everything.

Sidney Poitier reportedly was the influence who told his friend Alice Childress to start writing.

I first read her work in college and have been obsessed with her writing ever since. And I was listening to Motown as I was reading. And I was watching Sidney, then later watching Oprah, who also had been watching Sidney …

Mr. Poitier said, “My journey was not impossible; it was just harder.”

My heroes gave me permission, and I use that to keep me going, despite it never getting easier.

The journey continues …

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PBS North Carolina

Juneteenth, OWN’s “Delilah”, and Stephanie Mills

June 24, 2021/0 Comments/in Charles Randolph-Wright, Delilah, For Television, News, Video Clips /by Divatamer Updates
S35 E35 | 0:26:46 | Aired June 18, 2021 | Black Issues Forum | THIRTEEN | PBS North Carolina
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With President Biden’s signature, Juneteenth becomes a national holiday. Anti-racism Coach Courtney Napier discusses the impact. Also, host Deborah Holt Noel visits the Queen City to meet the Executive Producer Charles Randolph-Wright and cast of the OWN Network’s Delilah, filmed in Charlotte, exploring the city’s Black neighborhoods, Black representation, and Stephanie Mills’ latest project.

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Arena Stage

Arena Stage to roar back with mix of bubbly and soul

June 24, 2021/0 Comments/in American Prophet, Charles Randolph-Wright, For Theatre, News, Video Clips /by Divatamer Updates
June 16, 2021 | Written By News Desk | DC Metro Theater Arts
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In July 2022, the world-premiere musical American Prophet: Frederick Douglass in His Own Words — filled with soaring new melodies and powered by Douglass’s own speeches and writings — will make its debut in the Kreeger Theater. Charles Randolph-Wright (Broadway’s Motown the Musical, Arena’s Born For This: The BeBe Winans Story) returns to Arena with this new work that celebrates the revolutionary legacy of one of history’s first freedom fighters. Co-written and featuring new music by Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter Marcus Hummon, this daring and heart-stirring musical dramatizes Douglass as a young, fierce abolitionist and distinguished orator.

American Prophet: Frederick Douglass in His Own Words
Co-written and directed by Charles Randolph-Wright
Co-written and music by Marcus Hummon
In the Kreeger Theater | July 15 – August 28, 2022

https://randolph-wright.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/American-Prophet.jpeg 360 480 Divatamer Updates http://randolph-wright.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/CRW-logo33-300x201-300x201.png Divatamer Updates2021-06-24 16:46:072021-06-24 16:46:07Arena Stage to roar back with mix of bubbly and soul

R&B icon Stephanie Mills returns with a message of Black empowerment — and a music video filmed in uptown Charlotte

May 26, 2021/0 Comments/in Charles Randolph-Wright, News /by Divatamer Updates
May 24, 2021  Written By Glenn Burkins| QCity Metro
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Mills, who has called the Charlotte area home for more than 30 years, said her upcoming single — “Let’s Do The Right Thing” — was inspired by recent events, including the killing of George Floyd. PHOTO | QCity Metro

It took a pandemic, a national reckoning over race, plus some well-timed words from a friend, but after nearly 17 years away from recording studios, R&B icon Stephanie Mills is back in the business of making music.

Last week, Mills, 64, who recorded some of the best love-making music of the 1970s and ’80s and famously portrayed Dorothy in the Broadway musical “The Wiz,” was inside a historic church in uptown Charlotte, where she and a local crew filmed a music video to accompany the release of her upcoming single, “Let’s Do The Right Thing.”

Unlike the love songs that earned her a 1981 Grammy Award and countless other honors, Mills’ latest offering delivers a message of Black empowerment.

“The message is for Black people to come together and do the right thing for us, not to look to others to help us or give us a helping hand,” Mills said during a break from filming inside Historic Grace AME Zion Church on Brevard Street.

The song will be released on June 19 — Juneteenth — a date rich in Black symbolism.

With all that has happened over the past year, Mill said, she wanted to “come out with something that was positive.”

Her manager, Amp Harris, compared the song and its socially conscious message to the 1971 classic “What’s Going On?” by Marvin Gaye.

“Stephanie is really about uplifting her people. She is really about Black power,” he said. “It’s just a moving, positive, uplifting song for people of color.”

Harris said he and Mills, who has called the Charlotte area home for 30-plus years, talked often during the pandemic and what he calls “the George Floyd Movement.”

“She didn’t want to just do another song about, you know, love, relationships,” he said. “She wanted her first single coming out to be talking about bringing our people together.”

The video, which will debut in New York City, also around Juneteenth, includes four local artists who are seen painting interpretive images of Mills as the diminutive performer — she stands about 4 feet 9 inches — intones around them. (Vocally, she hasn’t lost a step.)

Although Mills has continued to tour, she has not released a single since 2012 or a studio album since 2004. “Her first and main priority,” Harris said, is caring for her son, who has Downs Syndrome.

Mills admits to being somewhat surprised by her own return to a recording studio. She had vowed to put that part of her life career her, said Harris, who has managed Mills for the last four years.

“She started in the business at nine, ten, eleven years old, and she’s been going ever since,” he said. “And so just the ups and downs, the political things that artists have to deal with behind the scenes with record labels and contracts and all of those things.”

What changed, Mills said, was the persuasion of Charles Randolph-Wright, a writer, producer and director for television and Broadway, who grew up in York, S.C. Randolph-Wright was an executive producer and producing director of the television series “Delilah,” which was filmed in Charlotte and aired on the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN). He and Mills describes one another as longtime friend.

“I said to her, ‘I need some new music… Your old music costs too much. I need some new music to play around with,’ and Stephanie started writing music,” he recalled.

Randolph-Wright said that when he first read the lyrics, he declared the song an “anthem.”

Both sides agree that the project came together quickly, and somewhat unexpectedly. But now with the song done and the video nearing completions, the two are making plans for further collaborations.

“None of this was really planned,” Mills said.

As Covid-19 led to months of fear and social isolation, Mill spent much of her time writing music and working on an upcoming book about raising a special-needs child. Parents of children with Downs Syndrome, she said, often attend her concerts.

Mills makes no bones about her political beliefs.

“I am so glad that we have a new president and a madam vice president,” she said, recalling days last year when she “cried and cried and cried” while watching the news.

“I think we are climbing out of that darkness, and I think we are going to come back to, you know, some kind of normalcy, which is very, very important,” she said. “This year and a half has been tough for a lot of people — for everyone — so I’m glad we’re finally coming out of it. A lot of people have passed away, people in my family, other family members I have known who had people pass away.”

Mills said it feels good be writing and performing new music, especially since she is doing it all this time as an independent artist.

Harris, her manager, calls it “Stephanie Mills uncut, with her own heart, her own vision, her own mindset.”

“That was really important to her…having her own independence as a black woman and still having a voice that people listen to,” he said.

When asked whether “Let’s Do The Right Thing” marks the emergence of a new Stephanie Mills, the singer was quick to shoot down any such suggestion.

“I wouldn’t say it’s a new Stephanie,” she said. “This Stephanie has always been there. I just think this is a more maybe conscious Stephanie that wants to really express how she feels about what’s going on in the world. That’s important to me. We live in this world, and I have an opinion, and I want to talk about it and say it.”

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Charles Randolph-Wright joins Whoopi Goldberg, André De Shields, and others in Upon These Shoulders

February 28, 2021/0 Comments/in Charles Randolph-Wright, News, Video Clips /by divatamer
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