Thomas Blake has beaten some tough odds. When he was 14, he lost his father to AIDS, and he was incarcerated at 18.
Blake spent eight years in federal prison, but he made history from the confines of those prison walls. While serving time, he produced his first stage play titled, Chess, an autobiographical piece.
“I began to realize and examine what it was that I wanted to get out of life, and prison wasn’t the road that I wanted to continue to travel down,” Blake recounts.
Keeping himself busy was a way for Blake to not think about where he was but rather where he wanted to go. In 1999 he developed the concept “AIDS Inside and Out,” to help educate prisoners on the causes and effects of the deadly disease. The concept was turned into a 45-minute class in 2000, and it was mandated that all inmates scheduled to be released from federal prison take the course.
Since his 2001 release, Blake has established himself as a director, producer and writer for his production company, Blake Vision Entertainment. Blake’s play, Chess the Bridge Builder, will be performed March 6–7 at the Porter Sanford III Performing Arts & Community Center in Atlanta, where he holds a position as the tech director.
“Just because you stumbled in life, you can still make it through, it’s just a matter of what you do when you get up,” he says.
–christian johnson
