Press
London’s Dynamic Television to Debut Madiba at CL
From Writer & Co-Executive Producer, Kathleen McGhee Anderson, 6 part mini series on Mandela, Madiba, is scheduled to debut at London’s CL from Dynamic Television this November.
Los Angeles Sentinel: A Pioneer on the Television Frontier
In television writing circles, there is probably no higher aspiration than to have a million no’s to a script finally become a yes. Thus were the humble beginnings of multifaceted executive television writer, producer, and playwright Kathleen McGhee-Anderson, who after over two decades of creating extraordinary work is being honored at …
KCBS: Celebrate 5 Of LA’s Most Influential Women
March is Women’s History Month, and this year’s theme is “Women Inspiring Innovation Through Imagination: Celebrating Women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics.” The United States certainly has a great share of inspiring women of this sort. Through the years, this country has been transformed by the energy and the hard work of females who …
Nice Girls TV: Women Behind The Scenes
Today’s Women Behind the Scenes spotlight is shone on Writer-Producer Kathleen McGhee-Anderson. In the 1980’s, Kathleen worked as a writer on such shows as Little House on the Prairie, Webster, Gimme a Break!, 227 and Amen. Moving into the 1990’s, she worked as a writer on The Cosby Show in 1991 and then a few …
Vineyard Gazette: Mojo Is Knowing When to Stay, When to Let Go of a Love Lost
Remember that old 1950s TV show that posed the question, “Can this marriage be saved?” presenting his story, her story and a wrap-up by an expert? Most marriages hit rough spots, and when the subjects share their gripes, the listener find himself or herself silently asking the above question. In 5 Mojo …
Martha’s Vineyard Times: 5 Mojo Secrets
“5 Mojo Secrets” at The Vineyard Playhouse By Gwyn McAllister August 30, 2011 One wouldn’t expect a drama about divorce to be a feel-good story, but playwright Kathleen McGhee-Anderson has managed to pull off that feat with “5 Mojo Secrets,” the final entry in The Vineyard Playhouse’s Festival of African-American Music and Theater. Audience members …
The Crisis Magazine: Lincoln Heights
Prepare for future by looking at past By Deborah Douglas Winter 2010 In a TV landscape lacking meaningful Black images, Kathleen McGhee-Anderson and her cast shine a welcome light. Click through the television channels, and—still—very little Black and Brown and good is going on after all the study, protest and time wasted in front …
WGA West: A New Home in the Old Neighborhood
Throughout her varied writing career, Lincoln Heights showrunner Kathleen McGhee-Anderson has explored the many-splendored facets of families on television, from the outrageously funny and tragic to the everyday mundane. With her latest effort, McGhee-Anderson, whose credits include Benson, Charles in Charge, Touched by an Angel, and Soul Food, is again focused on …
New York Post: Soulful ‘Lincoln’ Hits The Heights
Finally, someone’s making a family drama for television that actually stands for something. That someone is a producer/writer named Kathleen McGhee-Anderson, who is an executive producer (along with Kevin Hooks) of “Lincoln Heights,” premiering this week on ABC Family. A native of Detroit who was educated at Spelman College and Columbia …
TimeOff: Spark of Life
TimeOFF The Genesis Festival of New Voices returns to Crossroads Theatre Company. The answer to that familiar icebreaker question — if you could have dinner with anyone from history, living or dead, who would it be? — has long been an easy one for playwright Kathleen McGhee-Anderson …
Spelman Messenger: Hollywood Wise
“I’m a storyteller by nature,” says Kathleen McGhee-Anderson, C’72, whose career has taken her from an English major/math minor at Spelman to serving as executive producer/writer in the fifth and final season of Soul Food, television’s longest-running African American drama. After graduating cum laude from Spelman (where she earned her stripes onstage …
AUC Alumni: Never Far From Her Heart: A Spelman Alumna Speaks
Kathleen McGhee Anderson carries a valuable piece of Spelman College with her wherever she goes and her extensive career as a writer has taken her to a variety of places. She thanks her AUC experience for equipping her with the knowledge and confidence that has enabled her to open doors to new challenges and experiences …
Washington Post: Last Call for ‘Soul Food’
Showtime’s Black-Cast Drama Had Hearty Helping of Reality By Ovetta Wiggins Washington Post Staff Writer When we recently left our favorite couple on “Soul Food,” Teri was waking Damon up from a drunken stupor. He said he needed to use the bathroom. She said they needed to talk. Have it your way, he said, then proceeded to irrigate her potted plant …
The Philadelphia Inquirer: Soulful saga built on hits of Gamble and Huff
Me and Mrs. Jones may feature Grammy-winning Lou Rawls and his velvety baritone in a central role, but the true star of this new show is the music. Packed with 44 of the infectious, hook-filled 1970s R&B hits produced by Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff at their Philadelphia International Records, this is one supremely soulful musical …
Vineyard Gazette: Oak and Ivy, Powerful New Drama, Opens Promising New Season For Vineyard Playhouse
If the initial production at the Vineyard Playhouse is any indication of what the theatre-goer might expect this season, a great summer is in store. Oak and Ivy, written by Kathleen McGhee-Anderson, is an incredible presentation that provides the audience with a journey into the magical world of theatre that is nothing short of spectacular …
The Newark Star Ledger: Crossroads unveils another dramatic winner
The “Venice” that provides the title for Kathleen McGhee-Anderson’s remarkable new play is not the fabled Italian city. Instead, Venice, California, is her locale … she describes it as a beautiful town where mountains sit on one edge, and the Pacific on the other, WHat goes on in between, however, is hardly pacific …
Horizon: Movin’ On Up
If we’re worker bees, how come we feel like drones so much of the time –- doing the same thing over and over, our savvy sapped from us bit by bit, our minds clouded by relentless conformity? Kathleen McGhee-Anderson has done her share of punching the virtual time card. In the old days, we’d call it paying our dues. But now, with a couple of good scripts brought to life, she’s creating a buzz around herself …
USA Today:Prepare for future by looking at past
In November, a small group of black intellectuals, politicians, academics, journalists and artists will come together to discuss the role of African-Americans in the 21st century. the brainchild of Atlanta Mayor Bill Campbell, this invitation-only meeting, called “The Atlanta Conference on African-Americans in the Next Millennium” …
The Hollywood Reporter: The Color of Courage
This program is a tale of color (as in race) and courage (as in strength of character). It has quiet power in its affecting relationship between white Anna Sipes (Linda Hamilton) and Minnie McGhee (Lynn Whitfield), a black woman in an all-white Detroit neighborhood, circa 1940s. The appeal here is a deepening attachment between the women and the complex legal battle between their families …
Los Angeles Times: The Color Of Courage
They Built a Home in Which All Could Live by Lynne Heffley February 10, 1999 It was family lore when writer Kathleen McGhee Anderson was growing up: How, in the turbulent ’40s, her reserved grandparents, Orsel and Minnie McGhee, were sued and harassed for buying a home across the invisible segregation line in an all-white Detroit neighborhood …
The Home News: At Crossroads, the birth of an ovation
Raising kids is a risky business, no doubt about it. No matter how hard we try to shelter them from the world, we must one day let them go out and make their own choices and their own mistakes. Now picture a single mother trying to raise kids of mixed race in the 1960s on the south side of Chicago. Figure the odds of a happy outcome for mother or daughter …
American Theatre Magazine: Categorical Denial
Playwright Kathleen McGhee-Anderson actively defies categorization. She has written successfully for theatre, film and television, crossed with ease the line between drama and comedy, and created an unusual literary voice which combines pure theatricality with poetic flourish and cinematic technique …
Home News Tribune: ‘Mothers’ a poignant look at race relations
Odd, and interesting, that a man like Bill Cosby would commission a play like “Mothers.” The two single mothers in Kathleen McGhee-Anderson’s memorable new play, struggling against the odds to raise mixed-race children, are about as far as you could get from Cosby’s picture-perfect TV family …
America’s favorite father brings “Mothers” to New Jersey audience
Notes drop from a saxophone and the soulful ballad captures the audience the moment they politely lay their playbills on their laps. Music helps the play, “Mothers.” hook. It actually draws the audience into the compelling world of two women – one Japanese, the other white …
Mothers’ is something rare, great and beautiful
Meet Jean, a white Kentuckian whipped by two failed marriages. With her youngest daughter Penny in tow, she takes a dingy apartment in a black neighbor-hood on Chicago’s South Side and ekes out a living as a waitress in a diner. Meet Mariko, the streetwise build-ing superintendent who moonlights in the token booth for the El …
The Home News: Poetry and Private Wars
In 1893, Paul Lawrence Dunbar published his first volume of poetry, “Oak and Ivy, while working as an elevator operator, selling copies to passengers to pay for the printing. By 1897, other volumes of poetry by this son of former slaves were being widely read in England and the US and he was given a job in the reading room of the Library of Congress …
Asbury Park Press: Crossroads ‘Oak And Ivy’ grabs you
“Super excellent.” That was one audience member’s verdict on “Oak and Ivy”, Kathleen McGhee-Anderson’s play about the blck American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906) and his problematic relationships with his mother, his wife – a talented writer herself – his art and himself …