My life as an Associate Producer and Chief Financial Officer at New Heritage Theater Group, the oldest not for profit black theater in NYC started not with Voza but with Clarence B. Jones. Like I said -\u201d life ain\u2019t no straight line.\u201d <\/p>\n
In 1989 I started working at Greenlight Films, a new film company created by Clarence B. Jones. during a moment when I was not doing voice overs and had reached a kind of wall in my ability to move my singing career forward. I was available to work in a new capacity. Many of my friends were involved in the film business in LA and I had just spent the last 3 years there; and the timing was right to do something else. Clarence was the former personal attorney for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and an ionic figure in the Civil Rights Movement in this country. We rented space in the suite of offices Voza Rivers, an international events producer, and an original member and founder of New Heritage, had on 42nd Street & Madison. It was during this period that the New York Times ran a story about Spike Lee and how it seemed that the window of opportunity for \u201ctelling black stories\u201d was opening wider. Greenlight Films was a small company. Clarence was the Chairman & CEO, I was VP of Development and Voza was Vice Chairman. Voza was partners with Jamal Joseph, a former Black Panther who had recently been released from a ten-year stint in Leavenworth. He was a great writer. He had earned two degrees while in prison and was making a name for himself back in New York. He had a screenplay about his young life as a Panther called \u201cLiberated Territory\u201d and it became our goal to make it a film. Well, we never did but Jamal went on to write a book about that time in his life, (\u201cPanther Baby\u201d) and is the Executive Artistic Director of New Heritage Theatre Group . In 1997 Voza and Jamal created IMPACT Repertory Theatre, our GRAMMY and Oscar nominated (for Best Song for the movie \u201cAugust Rush\u201d) youth group . These relationships, begun thirty years ago, have become my family. Voza and Jamal were the Executive Producers of my first two CD\u2019s. In fact, they created a label- Harlemwood Records \u2013 just for the first two CD\u2019s. So today, along with the stability provided by past commercial work in the form of my union pension, New Heritage also provides the support that allows me to pursue and fulfill my creative endeavors.<\/p>\n[aesop_gallery pslightbox=”on” galleryType=”hero” id=”249″]\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
My life as an Associate Producer and Chief Financial Officer at New Heritage Theater Group, the oldest not for profit black theater in NYC started not with Voza but with Clarence B. Jones. Like I said -\u201d life ain\u2019t no straight line.\u201d In 1989 I started working at Greenlight Films, a new film company created […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-highlight"],"metadata":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n