In 2021, Kandi Burruss overheard a comment that she says crystallized her mission as a theater producer. She was listening in on a post-show talkback for the first play she had produced for Broadway, Thoughts of Colored Man, when an older white woman asked a question. “At the time, there were a couple other shows that were starring African-American talent on stage,” Burruss recalls to me on a mid-March afternoon in Manhattan, twirling her fork around a strand of Maine lobster spaghetti. “And [the woman] said, ‘Well, I think it’s great that we have these shows that are starring African-American talent. But don’t you think you guys shouldn’t put so many up at once so it doesn’t pull the ticket sales away from each other?’” At the time, Burruss was speechless. With a look of performative confusion, she lets out a sigh. “It was as if we could only do one at a time, like only one could make it.”
