Kandi Burruss is a reality TV star, a music industry veteran, and an entrepreneur — and now, she’s a Broadway producer.
Listen to this week’s “Stagecraft” podcast below:
A former mainstay of “The Real Housewives of Atlanta” and a longtime member of the R&B girl group Xscape, Burruss is currently a producer on the new Broadway revival of “Othello” starring Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal. But she got her first Broadway producing credit on the play “Thoughts of a Colored Man” in 2021 — just after Broadway’s COVID lockdown, at a time that was one of the theater industry’s most challenging moments.
“’Thoughts of a Colored Man’ closed before I wanted it to — I cried,” Burruss admitted on the new episode of “Stagecraft,” Variety’s theater podcast. But the experience didn’t deter her, and she went on to produce the starry, strong-selling revival of “The Piano Lesson” (starring Samuel L. Jackson and John David Washington) and “The Wiz.”
For each of her shows, she’s served as a tireless promoter during every media opportunity that comes her way via the “Real Housewives” or Xscape or any of her other projects.
“I think this is a new Broadway,” Burruss said. “I definitely feel like I did contribute to helping it become popular with people who didn’t normally think about going to a Broadway show.”
She added, “You have to allow people to know that Broadway is for everyone.”
Burruss performed in musical theater as a kid, and her current involvement in Broadway fulfills a childhood dream. Back in 2018, she landed her first Broadway acting gig in “Chicago.” Now, she’s added theater to a producing portfolio that already includes TV, film and music.
“I can only be talent for so long,” she said of her move into producing. “I want to know the ins and outs and how it works behind the scenes. Who gets to make the decisions around here? Those things are important, especially when it comes to giving opportunity to other people.”
Also on the new episode of “Stagecraft,” Burruss talked about attending the first rehearsal and read-through of “Othello” — where Washington played the comedian (“it was like joke after joke, making everybody laugh”) — and offered a few details about the upcoming movie she produced, “Don’t Bring Your Man to Atlanta.”
She also looked back on her 14 seasons with “The Real Housewives of Atlanta,” the TV franchise that she exited last year. “[‘Real Housewives’] definitely changed my life, and it put me in a place where people feel connected to me,” she said. “And I appreciate that! I feel connected to them too.”
