Sunday will be your last opportunity (unless they extend it, and they should) to see the Alliance Theatre’s World Premiere of the musical “The Preacher’s Wife” (Ends June 16) which is based on the popular movie starring Whitney Houston and Denzel Washington is just as good as anything you will currently see on Broadway. When it comes to grade A theater, the production checks all of the right boxes from acting to music to directing to set design. Basically, it’s an Alliance homerun.
The musical stars Amber Riley (Julia) as the Preacher’s wife; Alan H. Green (Joe Hamilton, the developer) and Donald Webber, Jr. (Dudley) as the angel sent down to help the Preacher to save his church and his marriage.
Speaking of Broadway, the production could very well make its debut there but there is no official word that the musical is being workshopped for The Great White Way according to cast member and Georgia resident Brad Raymond (Deacon Johnson). Raymond, a Chicago native who happily calls Atlanta home, now took a few minutes to talk about the production and his successful theater career in Georgia just before he headed to the Alliance for that night’s production. This is an edited version of our conversation.
The Atlanta Voice: Was it a culture shock for you when you first moved to Georgia?
Brad Raymond: It was a little bit of a culture shock. I said, ‘Oh, I can’t go to sleep.’ There are no gunshots and sirens (laughing). Oh, wow. Seriously, like it was a lot more than what I was used to. So that the first year though, I went back up to Chicago a lot, but then I eventually really grew to love it and Georgia became home. I love the solitude and quiet. I love how unburdened it is. I do wish the politics were a little different, but that almost seems like it’s trying to change, too.
AV: Did you perform a lot in Chicago?
Brad Raymond: I did more as a teenager and as a kid in college, and then I focused in on teaching in my early adult years. I started off as the head of the music department at the College Prep High School, and then I became artistic director of Performing Arts of charter schools. So those were those very demanding jobs, and I wasn’t able to act as much as I wanted to. But when we moved down here, I took a year off, and after that, I decided to focus primarily on performing and I’ve been doing it ever since.
AV: So what company did you first work with down here?
Brad Raymond: I worked with a small community group called Onion Man, and actually the founder of that organization took his life the year before last.
AV: After Onion Man where did you go?
Brad Raymond: .I have done several productions at Kenny Leon’s True Colors Theater. Tthe first show that I did for True Colors was “Funk”, and we did it at 14th Street Playhouse. They wanted to hire some fresh faces who hadn’t worked at True Colors before. It was a wonderful show. We had such a good time. It was well received by their audiences and by the critics. It was an adaptation of the personal story that George C Wolfe put together.
AV: Is The Preacher’s Wife being tested for Broadway? (Several other plays have been workshopped at The Alliance for Broadway.)
Brad Raymond: That is the buzz. There’s no official word about it yet, but that is the rumor. And They do have a few New York producers involved, and so that usually doesn’t happen unless they’re thinking about trying to take the piece to Broadway.
AV: So what do you like about this stage version of “The Preacher’s Wife”?
Brad Raymond: The focus is more on the women, on Julia and Marguerite and it really being their story. I think the movie is fantastic. I love it, but we do need to hear black women’s voices in a stronger way. We’ve seen that change really start to happen in television in a wonderful way. And I think film and theater are starting to catch up with that, where black women are at the helm of big shows, and that black women are also writing and speaking in their own voices.
That’s why I think it’s so great to have Azie Dungey, you know, writing this script, to be able to bring a black woman’s perspective for this main character, which is a Black woman. So that’s one thing that I really love about it. The other thing that I love is how Tittus Burgess is able to write in such a great eclectic style. He has a mastery of all these different styles of both black music and traditional Broadway found, and it’s a nice mix that you don’t find in most musicals today or ever.