top of page
The Production Team

Writer, Producer, Director & Lyricist

Dietra Kelsey is host and producer of Sistah Talk TV Show, a talk variety show which features African American Women discussing politics, hot topics, Showcasing entertainment and events in our community. She wrote,  Produced and performed a one woman show ZORA SPEAKS about the life of the Writer and Anthropologist, Zora Neale Hurston. Also, PASSAGE about the civil rights movement. Her writing was showcased for the event LETTERS TO OUR DAUGHTERS produced by Billie Holiday Theatre, and Frank Silvera Workshops curated by playwright and MacArthur Fellow Dominique Morriseau (writer of the Broadway show – Ain’t too Proud to Beg) in New York and Los Angeles in March 2019. She moderated a segment of The Frederick Douglass Continuum 2019: Echoes of Our Ancestors produced by Tammie Tyree.  Kelsey recently completed a short thriller film, called SENSELESS that was accepted into the Queens Underground Film Festival in 2021.

 

She is delighted to premiere her staged gospel musical "WHOSE SIDE ARE YOU ON?" about gang and gun violence at Goddard Riverside Bernie Wohl Center. 

Jackie Jeffries

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. 

OIP.jpg

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.

TALL TITLE

Jelani Dream picture.jpg

Musical Director

Omar Jelani Noel (Jelani Dream) is a pianist, composer, and creative writer. He has been a music director for Amas Musical Theater, the Kwanzaa Film Festival, and Mickey’s Uncut Hits at the Laurie Beechman Theater. Jelani has also performed as a piano accompanist at the Consulate for the Czech Republic in New York City and the Shrine Club in Harlem. His credits also include La Mama Theatre, Lehman Stages, LIU Brooklyn Media Arts, and The Theater for the New City.

Jelani currently freelances as a musician and composer. He writes screenplays, stage plays, and works in education.

David Givens.png

Production Manager, Light Designer & Fight Coordinator

David Givens has been involved in theatrical productions since the early 2000’s. His roots were established when he began working with a traveling theater company who raised funds for churches in Harlem. This inspired him to create his own theater company named “I Act, you Act, Theater”. Its purpose was to create a space where ALL actors could be involved in the arts, whether they had experience or not. All ages and races were welcomed; His most popular recurring production was a comedy skit show titled, “Harlem’s, In Living Color.”

David has built a career as a Stage manager working with Alvin Alley, New York Fashion Week, Tada Youth Theater, Webster Hall’s Saved by the 90’s weekly event, and Hudson Theater Works: “One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.”

He's currently transitioning to film becoming a runner up for the Christian Family Film Festival and creating a spinoff web series about the Matrix called "Breakout"!

bottom of page