WHOSE SIDE ARE YOU ON?
Gospel Stage Musical About Gang & Gun Violence
Buy 2 tickets at $35 each. Get $10 off
Flyer Designed by David Givens, Jr.
4/24 Thursday 7:30 pm 4/26 Saturday 3:00 pm
4/25 Friday 7:30 pm 4/27 Sunday 3:00 pm
The Production Team
Writer, Producer, Director & Lyricist
Dietra Kelsey is a dynamic host, producer, playwright, and performer whose work highlights African American culture, politics, and community engagement. She is the host and co-producer of Sistah Talk TV Show, a variety talk show featuring African American women discussing politics, hot topics, entertainment, and events within the community.
Kelsey’s theatrical accomplishments include writing, producing, Hip Hop Gospel musical, “Whose Side Are You On?” combatting gang and gun violence. Kelsey has wrote, produced and performed her one-woman show ZORA SPEAKS, which delves into the life of celebrated writer and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston. She also created PASSAGE, a powerful exploration of the civil rights movement. Her writing has been showcased in prestigious events such as Letters to Our Daughters, produced by the Billie Holiday Theatre, and Frank Silvera workshops curated by playwright and MacArthur Fellow Dominique Morriseau (Ain’t Too Proud to Beg). The event was produced in New York and Los Angeles.
She has moderated a segment of The Frederick Douglass Continuum: Echoes of Our Ancestors, produced by Tammie Tyree demonstrating her ability to facilitate meaningful cultural dialogue. Her work as a filmmaker includes SENSELESS, a short thriller accepted into the Queens Underground Film Festival. Additionally, she has moderated panels on Entertainment Law and Crowdfunding at the Kwanzaa Film Festival in Harlem for the past two years. Kelsey is in pre-production for another run of ZORA SPEAKS in May and her Hip Hop Gospel Musical, “Whose Side Are You On?” combatting gang and gun violence in April. The musical has been in performance since 2019.
Former producer at the National Black Theater and Producer of TAKE WING AND SOAR PRODUCTIONS, both located in Harlem, New York. Freelance Producer at the Negro Ensemble Company and also The New Federal Theater as a Producer and a Board member. MFA in film. Jeffries is a mother of three. She loves to travel, go to museums and an avid theater goer.
Music Composer & Arranger
Steve Wallace is an award-winning singer and composer from Chicago IL. He is a member of TNNY Writer’s Lab and the winner of “The Harrington Award” for creativity as a composer with BMI’s Lehman Engel Musical Theater Workshop. His professional expertise incorporates a plethora of genres and styles from Soul, Hip Hop, Blues, Gospel and Classical and in the span of his career, Mr. Wallace has produced, performed and written on hundreds of albums. He has, and continues to compose scores for television and film including networks such as MTV, BET, NBC, not to mention the theme song for the return of the iconic YO! MTV Raps in 2022 as well as his score for the film Four Seasons which won the award for “Best Film Score” at the 2021 Diversity at Cannes film showcase. Steve also created an arrangement of Lift Every Voice and Sing for the NAACP, worked with Sony Music, The Universal Music Group, and he was the producer, composer and arranger for the song for the theme of the United Nations’s “Humanitarian Day” Be A Humanitarian that was also in the running for Grammy Award nominations. Mr. Wallace premiered his chamber opera based on a song by the rapper, Nas called Undying Love at the Kehrein Center in Chicago to great acclaim and the music from the opera was highlighted on Classical WFMT and the Chicago Tribune.
Steve Wallace has written a book of 14 art songs, 2 symphonies, 4 operas, a variety of chamber works and 4 musicals, of which the animated musical Humpty’s Hatching Day was a REMI award winner at The WorldFest Houston Film Festival. The groundbreaking R&B Opera/film musical Hal King that Mr. Wallace created, composed, and produced was a nominee for “Best Diaspora Feature” at the African Movie Academy Awards 2021 in Lagos Nigeria.
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Musical Director
He got his first TV debut on Showtime at the Apollo in 2005, being runner up on his show. A few years down the line, he made it to the Top three of the NY American Idol style show Empire City's Lucky break 2. When not working on his own project, he can be seen performing with his band Ji- Groove and hosting events all across America.
He also sings background and does vocal arranging for numerous artist as well. He has sung background behind the likes of Mariah Carey, Karen Clark-Sheard just to name a few. He is currently working on his first EP project, Not yet titled. It's under the new genre and style he created called *Soul R & B. It took him 14 years to find this sound. Because he can sing gospel, neo-soul and R&B, but didn’t not feel like one or the other is exactly where he fits in, in this, this sound was created. Be on the look out for this talented brother on the rise. He is out and about performing all over, letting his voice be heard and making a mark for himself. His vocal technique and vocal range is nothing to be played with. He has a story to tell and he pulls you right into with him each and every time he performs. He is ready to take the industry by storm, so look out, at a venue near you, for Mr. Troy Weekes Music.
