by Jessica Jones
Kandi Burruss’ life-based musical “A Mother’s Love” will be showing Sep. 14 at the BJCC Concert Hall. Before the play’s production in Birmingham, Travis Steele, founder and CEO of Theatrical Works Live, and the director of the musical talks about his partnership with Burruss and her husband Todd Tucker, and his passion for their vision.
“A Mother’s Love” will be showing in Birmingham soon, so tell me about why you decided to take on the play.
For one it was interesting how it came about. My wife brought it to me. Of course we’re both big fans of the Real Housewives of Atlanta. She said we might want to talk to Kandi about this play. It seems to be real nice. It received excellent reviews in Atlanta. We set up a meeting with Kandi and her manager Don Juan and it came about and after speaking with her and seeing her vision for it I was really sold that, yes, this is really a good move.
This play will be in 29 different cities. How did you choose the venues and cities for the play?
What we did was we based it on the past history of what markets were receptive to it, but I think with this one we had our work cut out for us because maybe we could get Birmingham this day and maybe not Huntsville another day. As far as choosing the venues we were able to check numbers and see where they performed well.
This is a very large production. What does a play of this caliber require of you?
From my end of things the first challenge is getting the buildings. When you have artists, a lot of times they want to see those cities like Atlanta or Los Angeles or New York in the tour route. So the first thing is getting the proper buildings that Kandi Burruss and Todd Tucker are pleased with. Then once you’ve presented them with the routing, actually putting the production in play. The entire squad is in rehearsals right now so we have a team that is our production manager and they tackle the day-to-day work of dealing with the cast and running the rehearsals.
Tell me about your business relationship with Kandi Burruss and what she’s brought to this production that you’re grateful for.
One of the things that I think everyone involved in the production is excited about is her brand and how big she is. Not only how big she is as far as the brand, the company, the various businesses she has, it makes it easier to go to, whether it’s a Black market or a white market, or a military market and say Kandi Burruss. They know this artist. She’s somebody who is in their homes. A lot of women and men relate to her and relate to her struggles. Away from the brand, what I like the most is she’s down to earth. If she likes something she’ll voice it, if she doesn’t she’ll voice it, but she’s easy to get along with. She’s not into the superstar stuff that can come with [working with] an artist. That’s one of the biggest assets to the production.
This is being marketed as a family-friendly play. What is so important to you about providing wholesome entertainment?
I think that one of the things that you see not only in the Black community but, you’ll see this at rock concerts, hip hop and maybe R&B, you don’t see a lot of shows you can go to with your kids. I have three daughters at the ages of 10, 7, and 5, and they’ll be at the opening night of this. They are fans of Kandi. They enjoy the Housewives, and they’re excited about it and I’m actually excited that it’s a storyline and the script is actually family oriented and I can sit with my daughters through the show. All too often we can do that physically when we go to the movies, we can choose a movie, but with live entertainment it’s usually something real, real kiddy like Disney on Ice or it’s an adult show and you have to leave the kids behind. It’s not too often that we can go into the theater and see something that I actually love.
You’ve mentioned that you want to present plays that the reach the audience in a relatable way. How do you think the audience will relate to A Mother’s Love?
This year marks the 10th year that I’ve been married and I know Kandi and Todd are working on their first year. [The play] kind of hit me across the face because it was like, ‘man, we kind of went through the same thing.’ My wife is an only child and until the wedding day, her mom and I had that resistance, probably not to the extent of Todd and Momma Joyce, but we had our little situation. So when I saw the show we were able to laugh at ourselves and say, ‘remember 10 years ago, your mom said this’. We can relate to it in our own little way. Then you get into the family. Everyone has something to say and it might not just be the father and the son-in-law or the daughter–in-law and the mother. You get the family members into it. In that case it’s very relatable to people. Everybody goes through something like that. You don’t even have to be married. You can be boyfriend and girlfriend. So people can relate to that challenge.
If you had to sum up the play in a few short sentences or say what about the play will resonate with the audience, what would you say?
For me, and everyone views things differently, I think it’s overcoming challenges, regardless of what the challenge is. When I looked at it, I thought about it myself; what are my own personal challenges? From the music industry being really fast and booming in the early 2000s, then everything started closing down. You know you have your family who tell you ‘maybe you don’t want to do this anymore’. So overcoming challenges is what I would say [the play is about], whether it’s in a relationship, a business or a dream. I think Kandi did a good job of putting that in the script. I think she exemplified that well. Anybody can apply [the moral of this play] to their lives. It might not be musical. They might be going through it at their job in corporate America and feel like they can’t get ahead because of their boss. Everyone knew what Todd, Kandi and Momma Joyce went through, but they’re still working together to overcome challenges. It’s a constant thing and that’s how life is.
