Houstonian Angela Perkins is a director and an actor who enjoys bringing real-life situations to life on stage through her company Out of the Ordinary Production.
Her upcoming play, Love’s Complicated, which will open on Saturday, April 29, 2023, at the Stafford Civic Center dives deeper into how people navigate different connections.
With Tyler Perry as an inspiration, she shared her passion for being a director and what people can expect from her stage play.
What can we expect from your stage play Love’s Complicated?
Basically what the stage play is about is Cole, one of the main actors, and his siblings. They are afraid to love because they’ve been hurt in the past. … So, in any relationship they have, they sabotage it because they have that wall built up. They don’t want to let the person in, so they sabotage good relationships. It takes something terrible to happen to let them realize and know what love is. Basically, that’s what the play is about. We deal with all types of relationships. We deal with mother and son relationships, we deal with sisterhood, friends, and brotherhood.
As a director, what inspires you to bring these stories to life?
Well, I want to be able to tell these stories on stage and be able to inspire the audience, telling the stories about African Americans, put it on stage, [and] let them know that there’s always a way out. A lot of times we deal with trauma from previous relationships, and our past childhood trauma issues, so I want to be able to put that message on stage but be able to put it in a positive light. Because we’re going to bring comedy, we’re going to bring romance, we’re going to bring humor, we’re going to [bring] all types of excitement on stage, not just the bad part of the trauma issues that each one of us has had.
In your industry, what is a challenge you had and how did you overcome it?
Well, this is the second stage play that I directed, but it’s my third time getting ready to do a stage play. The challenge I had [was going] from an actress to a director, because it’s totally different. As a director, you’re in charge of everything. You’re in charge of the vision, you’re in charge of the actors, you are in charge of all the pieces to bring that story to life. But the challenge … was stepping out on faith, because like I said I’m a behind-the-scenes person, so being a director and telling the actors what I’m looking for in the story [can be] a little bit challenging. I have a team who helps out as well, so it made it a little bit better.
