Behind the Scenes with Award-Winning Filmmaker and Writer Trey Ellis
This Prolific and Multi-Talented Writer and Filmmaker is our June 2021 Spotlight Celebrity
Trey Ellis is a two-time Emmy and Peabody Award-winning filmmaker, American Book Award winning novelist, NAACP Image award-winning playwright, essayist, and Professor of Professional Practice at Columbia University’s School of the Arts.
Most recently, he was an Executive Producer and Interviewer for the 2019 HBO documentaries True Justice: Bryan Stevenson's Fight for Equality and King in the Wilderness.
His screenplay Holy Mackerel! is one of the highest ever rated on Franklin Leonard’s Black List.com. Some of his other screenplays include the 1995 HBO history drama The Tuskegee Airmen and the 2003 Showtime comedy drama Good Fences, which premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and was shortlisted for the PEN award for Best Teleplay.
His works have also been screened at the Museum of Modern Art and the Brooklyn Academy of Music.
Trey is the author of the novels, Platitudes, Home Repairs and Right Here, Right Now, as well as the memoir Bedtime Stories: Adventures in the Land of Single-Fatherhood.
His essays have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Playboy, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, GQ and Vanity Fair and he has contributed audio commentary to NPR’s All Things Considered.
Additionally, his play, Fly, was commissioned by the Lincoln Center Institute and continues to be performed around the country including Washington, D.C.’s Ford’s Theater, the Pasadena Playhouse and the New Victory Theater in New York. Fly won an NAACP Image Award and in 2017 a Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award.
He has written the book and is the co-writer of the lyrics for the Broadway-bound musical about the life of Dorothy Dandridge (Dorothy Dandridge, The Musical)
The vision of this spectacular musical was spearheaded by Broadway songstress N’Kenge who will play Dorothy Dandridge and who brought together an award-winning creative team helmed under the direction of Tony Award Winner Tamara Tunie with music & lyrics by Broadway’s very own Shelton Becton. The musical will combine powerful and entertaining original Broadway songs along with some of the greatest and timeless songs from the catalogues of Cole Porter, Duke Ellington and more.
What are Trey’s thoughts about the Dorothy Dandridge musical?
“Writing about the life of Dorothy Dandridge has been a goal of mine for years! Her star shined too bright and too soon for this world, and her lessons still echo with us today. So much more than just the “Black Marilyn Monroe,” Dorothy was absolutely one-of-a-kind. And the opportunity to collaborate with such a brilliant and creative team to bring her story to the stage is a dream come true.”
- Trey Ellis
With Broadway opening up again this year after the pandemic, we can only hope that this stage production comes to life soon followed by a Dorothy Dandridge biopic film and more from this amazing creative team.
Learn more about Trey Ellis in the following interview.
What brought you to this specific career path and who or what influenced you in that decision?
Trey: My mother was a law student but had also really wanted to be a playwright. I was always surrounded by books. I think I always knew that I wanted to be some sort of writer.
Is there a particular person who helped you to get where you are today who you are grateful to? Who and why?
Trey: I am so very grateful to so many. The novelists Ishmael Reed, Gilbert Sorrentino, and Alexander Theroux saw something in me at a very young age and gave me the courage to take the plunge. And then the theater director Ricardo Khan took a chance on me so many years later in theater and that has opened up another vein of art that truly excites me.
Who or what has inspired you most during the past year?
Trey: Obviously the BLM and in general the activism from so many, especially the young, has broken through my innate cynicism and has me daring for big changes in the way this nation treats the most vulnerable.
What was the best book, movie, or TV series you have read or watched in the past year?
Trey: That is such a tough question! I thought the movie, The Sound of Metal was extraordinary. I really enjoyed and appreciated the daring of Lovecraft Country.
What is your favorite motivational/inspirational quote and how has it been relevant to your life?
Trey: I’ve been a yoga student for almost thirty years but this year of quarantine took my practice to a new level. An online teacher I was just talking to the other day said something about handstanding that has so many other applications: “The only way to find balance is to go through imbalance again and again.”
Which moment in your life would you like to relive?
Trey: The last moments with my parents.
What is your biggest wish currently?
Trey: That the Democrats retain the house in the midterms, expand their numbers in the Senate and then we can all move forward to real systemic change.
What advice would you give aspiring writers/screenwriters?
Trey: Write for free. Write the stories you want to read or see. Forget the “market.” Let the market come to you.