{"id":77412,"date":"2016-10-24T15:52:08","date_gmt":"2016-10-24T15:52:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/0de2709a84.nxcli.net\/0-kjasnb\/2016\/10\/24\/love-jones-director-theodore-witcher-theater-producer-melvin-childs-talk-love-jones-musical\/"},"modified":"2018-12-18T02:46:47","modified_gmt":"2018-12-18T02:46:47","slug":"love-jones-director-theodore-witcher-theater-producer-melvin-childs-talk-love-jones-musical","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.blackfilm.com\/read\/love-jones-director-theodore-witcher-theater-producer-melvin-childs-talk-love-jones-musical\/","title":{"rendered":"Love Jones Director Theodore Witcher And Theater Producer Melvin Childs Talk About Love Jones The Musical"},"content":{"rendered":"

Love Jones Director Theodore Witcher And Theater Producer Melvin Childs Talk About Love Jones The Musical<\/strong>Posted by Wilson Morales<\/p>\n

October 24, 2016<\/p>\n

\"Love<\/a><\/p>\n

Over the weekend, Blackfilm.com <\/strong>had the opportunity to attend Love Jones The Musical,<\/strong> a stage adaptation of the critically acclaimed 1997 Love Jones film.<\/p>\n

Currently on tour, the production made a stop at Kings Theater, held in Brooklyn, NY with an all-star cast of R&B music\u2019s biggest names including Chrisette Michelle, Musiq Soulchild, Marsha Ambrosius, MC Lyte, Raheem Devaughn<\/strong> and Dave Hollister, <\/strong>as well as a couple of surprised performances.<\/p>\n

As noted by the press release, “Celebrating the 20th anniversary of the popular romantic comedy, the stage play takes the essence of the film and tells its story through music. Fusing chart-topping hits and fan favorite songs from the music artists, along with a few original songs, Love Jones The Musical, will be a transformative experience for the audience.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Love<\/a><\/p>\n

Produced by veteran theater producer Melvin Childs of Produced By Faith<\/strong> with stage play written by Timothy Allen Smith<\/strong> and directed by Zadia Ife<\/strong>, Love Jones The Musical, tells the universal and timeless story of love, heartbreak and starting over.<\/p>\n

The film tells the classic, yet gritty, love story of Darius Lovehall (an up & coming writer and self-proclaimed renaissance man) and Nina Mosley (an aspiring photographer). The film starred Larenz Tate, Nia Long, Isaiah Washington, Bill Bellamy<\/strong> and Lisa Nicole Carson.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In attendance at the NY showing was the film\u2019s original writer and director, Theodore Witcher<\/strong>, who also serves as consulting producer. Blackfilm.com caught up with him and the theater producer Melvin Childs <\/strong>how the show became a reality.<\/p>\n

\"love-jones-director-theodore-witcher\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Did you think this show would happen?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Theodore Witcher<\/b>: Strangely, and in a very 21st century way, somebody from the production hit me on Twitter of all places. From there, I had my manager Daryl get in contact with Melvin. You have to understand that when you work in show business, people call you all the time about this, that, etc..About 99% of it isn’t really at all. It’s all BS. I just assumed this was another one of those calls. To be frank, I sent the number to my manager to have him deal with it. Find out who these people are and get rid of them because they are bothering me.<\/p>\n

Then he calls me back like three months later and he goes, “Well, you know that guy. That was actually real. For the last three months, I have been negotiating with him.” I’m like, “You’re kidding? No way?” Even at that point, I was like, “Ok. Whatever. It will never happen.” But Daryl was saying that they were about to start rehearsals next month. Sure enough, they started rehearsals and the show opened on schedule the following month. It was something that came out out of the blue and turned out to be completely real. I was very surprised.<\/p>\n

\"love-jones-the-musical-director-melvin-childs\"<\/a><\/p>\n

For each city, that you go to, does the show become more organic as in highlighting aspects of the city in the dialogue?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Melvin Childs:<\/strong> Well, we have MC Lyte as the DJ, and as the music changes, so does the undertone of the actual club. That would probably the only changes we make when we’re in different parts of the country. When we’re in the South, it’s a bit different from when we are in New York and I think it’s working pretty well for us.<\/p>\n

Did you think the musical would work featuring singers?<\/strong><\/p>\n

TW:<\/strong> Having seen the show now, Melvin took an appropriate liberty from the original movie, which was about a poet. If you’re hoping to cast it with a group of R & B stars, it becomes an organic thing to have them sing their music as the story is proceeding as a way of expanding, illuminating and contrasting and explaining things that are going on in the story. I think that change that he made works tremendously well on stage. So yes, with a bunch of R&B stars, it can work.<\/p>\n

\"love-jones-the-musical-director-melvin-childs-and-love-jones-director-theodore-witcher\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In New York, the surprise guest star was Michel’le.\u00a0<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n

MC:<\/strong> We’re going to keep that going throughout the rest of the tour. The show is still evolving. When we first started this whole thing and with a show this big, it’s difficult to do it in the rehearsal time period that we normally work in. So we had to expand that on to the stage. Sometimes things work and sometimes things don’t work, so we changed things in the course of the last three weeks and we think we have something pretty special and people are responding to it.<\/p>\n