How does the second installment of “In Love and Struggle” differ from the first?
Well, the first iteration was live and very theatrical — a real performance with an accomplished and skilled theater director, Monica L. Williams, who really shepherded the project through after everything and everyone was in place. So, I came up with the concept, which is based on an experience I had with Alice Walker years ago, when she signed one of her books to me with the inscription, “For Rebecca, In Love and Struggle, Alice Walker” — then I worked with my team to assemble a beautiful lineup, and then kind of stood back a bit.
This year, I was much more hands-on, because we had to do it as an entirely audio project, so we worked with the fantastic audio producer and director, Noleca Radway, and then I narrated and wrote the intro, interstitials, and outro, which was really gratifying as I had just come off creating, writing and hosting “Billie Was a Black Woman,” another Audible original, and a companion podcast to The United States vs. Billie Holiday, the film starring the phenomenal Andra Day. It felt very much like those two projects were in conversation with each other.
