Tyler Perry 1969–

Playwright, actor, director

Failed Theater Ventures Almost Derailed Career

Found Success with “Change”

Gave Birth to Madea

Selected plays

Sources

Perhaps not as famous as America’s greatest playwrights, Tyler Perry has become known as the man who revitalized urban theater and gave new meaning to gospel theater. Emerging from the African-American experience, and perhaps sharing a characteristic comedic exuberance, urban theater and gospel theater are nevertheless separate genres. Unlike urban theater, gospel theater includes a distinct religious element, incorporating religiously-inspired characters into the narrative. Wearing all the hats—writing, producing, directing, and acting—Perry has been creating wildly popular plays that have repeatedly sold out in major cities around the United States. He has been nominated for several awards including the Helen Hayes award for outstanding lead actor and for four NAACP Theater Awards. At one time, three of his plays were touring the United States. While his plays often shock the audience because they address issues such as domestic violence and sexual abuse, his narrative method is side-splitting humor which places the disturbing themes in a universal context. All his plays have the same underlying message: Forgive through the power of God. Interestingly, audiences all over the country have regarded his shows as truly inspirational; some even describing Perry’s plays as a life-altering experience.

W.E.B. Du Bois declared that Black theater should have four components: it should be for us, by us, about us, and near us. While some critics asserted that Perry fulfills these requirements, others simply dismiss urban theater, including Perry’s work, as an unsophisticated art form which basically relies on stereotypes. Perry admitted to Ytasha L. Womack, writing for Essence, “Some of these plays give all of us a bad reputation.” Furthermore, gospel plays, as Toledo City Paper’s Brett Collins observed, mainly address a church-going—i.e. very specific—audience. “What distinguishes gospel plays from regular musicals,” Collins explained, “is the presence of ‘saved’ characters who spout scripture and sing God-centered songs. They usually contain at least a couple of buffoonish, stereotypical characters, which led to the genre being widely derided as ‘chitlin’ circuit theater.’” Since Perry has become a mainstay in the black theater circuit, American Theater magazine has replaced the term “chitlin circuit theater,” a generic description for Black theater, with the term “Urban Theater.”

Failed Theater Ventures Almost Derailed Career

Born Emmitt Perry, Jr. on September 13, 1969, in New Orleans, Perry has had a life that brings to mind a Hollywood screenplay about a man who, after great hardships, relies on his faith and attains wealth and fame. Named after his father, Perry was called “Junior” during his young life, a childhood that was filled with abuse. While Perry’s father provided materially for his family, he was the primary source of his son’s physical and emotional pain. The pain was so overwhelming that Perry attempted suicide as a young teenager. When he was sixteen, the young man, who hated to be called by his father’s name, changed his name to Tyler, a name which, years later, he found meant “builder of great things.”

At a Glance…

Born Emmitt Perry Jr. on September 13, 1969, in New Orleans, LA; son of Emmitt Perry Sr. Religion: Christian.

Career: Playwright and stage actor, 1998–; television screenwriter and producer, 2003–.

Address: Office —235 Peachtree Street, Suite 400, North Tower, Atlanta, GA 30303.

Although Perry was the “class clown” and loved to make people laugh, he was a very depressed and introspective boy, finding solace in writing and drawing. Failing to finish high school, he earned a GED and learned the carpentry trade. In an effort to heal deep emotional wounds, Perry began keeping a journal, an exercise that he learned about from watching one of Oprah Winfrey’s weekday talk shows. In his journal, Perry wrote himself a series of letters, finding that writing was extremely cathartic. More importantly, he found that he was extremely good at articulating his emotions. The collection of letters evolved into I Know I’ve Been Changed, his first gospel musical. The play, which addresses domestic violence and child abuse, described the particular ways in which emotional and physical trauma endured during childhood affects a person’s adulthood. The play introduced the idea of the extraordinary healing power of having faith in God. Perry explained to Upscale’s Kitty J. Pope, “Writing the letters was the first step in my healing process. I was full of anger and experiencing internal conflict and guilt. If you can forgive and move on with your life, you can find peace. You must learn to forgive not only other people, but also yourself.” Years later, Perry was a guest on Winfrey’s show.

In 1992, after developing a script from his letters, Perry moved to Atlanta where he found a job and saved all he could to produce his show. After saving 12 thousand dollars, he quit his job, and rented the 14th Street Playhouse, where he produced his play. Unfortunately, few came to see the play. Losing everything he had, Perry had to move in with friends. Subsequently, Perry entered a vicious cycle: the shows which he, with the help of some investors, financed, would always fail. He would quit his job, invest all his money, stage an unsuccessful show, and find himself destitute. After many years of this dispiriting routine, Perry simply exhausted all his resources, including places to stay. At one point, after several months of being jobless and homeless, he found a job, moved into an apartment and could even afford a telephone.

Found Success with “Change”

In 1998, after a telephone conversation with his parents, Perry found that, like the characters in his play, he’d been changed. The conversation was an angry one, and ended with Perry baring his soul to the people who had hurt him the most. In Madea’s Class Reunion Special Tenth Anniversary Collector’s Edition program, he recalled: “I told them everything that I had wanted to say as a little boy. I talked about all of the things that they had done to me and told them that I knew that I was not responsible for it.” He felt remarkably better. When the next opportunity to stage the show arose, Perry, now feeling completely insecure, and remembering what it felt like to be without food and shelter, decided not to go ahead. His friends prompted him to try again. Relenting, he asked for a leave from his job—the request, as usual, was denied. Overcome by fear and doubt, he turned to his higher power for guidance. He quit his job and threw himself into the project. By this time, he had lost his apartment and moved into a pay-by-the-week hotel with only a few of his possessions. Completely overwhelmed at this point, but still taking guidance from God, Perry called his mother, Maxine, initiating contact after a long period of silence. He felt nothing but forgiveness, for her, for his father, and for himself. Perry wrote on his official website, “Victims always feel as if they did things to themselves or something to ‘deserve it.’ The moment was so genuine and real that I knew something was about to change, but I didn’t know what.”

In March of 1998 I Know I’ve Been Changed was scheduled to open at the House of Blues in Atlanta. Still feeling doubtful and afraid, Perry wasn’t sure of anything anymore. It was a cold night and there was no heat in the theater. Just when he thought everything was “over” something compelled him to look out the window. What he saw literally shocked him: a long line of people, wrapped around the corner, waiting to get inside the theater! That night, and for its entire run, the show was sold out. I Know I’ve Been Changed became a hit. The play toured many large cities and, ironically, promoters who had initially dismissed Perry’s work when he needed a break were now begging to book the show.

After seeing I Know I’ve Been Changed, the Bishop T. D. Jakes approached Perry and asked him to work on a play, based on his New York Times best seller, Woman Thou Art Loosed. Perry agreed on the condition that he write, direct, and produce the play. Jakes accepted Perry’s terms. Opening in 1999, the show was a smashing success.

Gave Birth to Madea

After working on these two shows, both dealing with very distressing and serious matters, Perry decided to write a light-hearted play. The result of this creative shift was, I Can Do Bad All By Myself, which introduced the extraordinarily eccentric character, Madea, who has since become the “star” of all Perry’s subsequent shows. He remarked to BET Magazine, “I Know I’ve Been Changed dealt with the molestation of a little boy. In Woman Thou Art Loosed it was the rape of a little girl. Very serious subjects. In this show I just wanted to have some fun. I didn’t want to go too deeply. I just wanted to be able to appreciate the laughter that we have as African American people.” Perry and Jakes also collaborated to produce Behind Closed Doors, a play that portrays a character whose life has been dramatically altered by breast cancer.

One cannot talk about Tyler Perry without acknowledging his alter-ego, Madea, who, at first glance appears as someone’s grandma who wears cat glasses and carries a large pocketbook. But, upon further inspection the viewer will find that Madea, as Tom Sime wrote in the Dallas Morning News, makes Rip Wilson’s Geraldine seem demure. The name Madea, not to be confused with the Medea of Greek mythology and tragedy (although there are some similarities), is an endearing term for grandmother, a contraction of mother and dear. Perry told BET how he was inspired to create the outrageous character, “I was actually sitting watching the ‘Nutty Professor’ … if Eddie Murphy can do this, maybe I should try it and that’s what I did. This woman is really like an aunt I have sitting around, overweight, smoking cigarettes and just talking trash all the time.” Madea, whose motto is, “I ain’t saved (nor ever will be),” smokes her glaucoma medicine, totes a gun, and, doesn’t know that everyone can see the stocking cap under her ill-fitting wig. Following the gospel theater formula, everyone finds Jesus at the end except Madea. She disappears not only to avoid being saved, but so that she can come back in the next play, bad as ever. Audiences like her to be bad. “I think it’s because people miss this kind of grandmother in our community,” Perry told Sime, “Fifteen, twenty years ago, everybody’s child belonged to the neighborhood and you’d see Madeas on all of the corners. And if somebody did something wrong, before they could finish, their mother knew because Madea had called to tell them.” Madea is also featured in Diary of a Mad Black Woman, Madea’s Family Reunion, and Madea’s Class Reunion, all of which have played to sold-out houses all over the country. In the fall of 2003, The Tyler Perry Show is scheduled to make its debut on television, featuring Madea and other characters played by Perry. Also in 2003, Perry wrote and produced, He Proposed To Me —his first Madea-less, and Perry-less play.

In his Special Tenth Anniversary Collector’s Edition theatrical program that was printed for Madea’s Class Reunion, Tyler Perry reflected upon his successes during the past decade and described how he asks God what he should “talk about.” Asserting that forgiveness is the most powerful of life’s lessons, Perry explained that he owes everything to his experiences growing up, to being “Junior.” “So many people want to forget their pains and struggles, but I have realized that it was those moments of pain that were the moments that molded and defined me and made me the man that I am today.” As a grown man who has found forgiveness in his heart, he has realized that he is living the life he could only imagine when he was a child. Perry has definitely moved on and yearns to continue to share his life lessons, “All the pain I went through, from my childhood until this very day has been worth it—now that I’m able to help inspire people to be stronger and liver better lives.”

Selected plays

I Know I’ve Been Changed, 1998.

Woman Thou Art Loosed, 1999.

I Can Do Bad All By Myself, 2000.

Diary of a Mad Black Woman, 2001.

Madea’s Family Reunion, 2002.

Madea’s Class Reunion, 2003.

Sources

Periodicals

Black Enterprise, March 2001.

BET Magazine, September 29, 2000.

Dallas Morning News, October 4, 2000; November 5, 2002.

Essence, June 2002.

Hollywood Reporter, October 28, 2002.

Philadelphia Tribune, January 9, 2001.

Washington Post, April 2, 1999.

Upscale, February 2002.

On-line

Official Tyler Perry Website, www.tylerperry.com (July 18, 2003).

Other

Additional information for this profile was obtained from the Special 10th Anniversary Collector’s Edition: Madea’s Class Reunion, theatrical stage program and other materials provided by Tyler Perry.

—Christine Miner Minderovic