10 June 2008
Young Filmmaker - Tyler Perry
Born in New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1969, Tyler Perry's childhood included poverty, abuse, and hardship. In 1990 he saw an episode of The Oprah Winfrey Show during Winfrey advised people to process their difficult backgrounds through writing about them. Perry's writing eventually became his first plays. Today the award-winning playwright, author, actor, producer, and director is primarily known for his plays and films about day-to-day dilemmas of African-American life. In the first screen adaptation of one of his plays, Perry played three characters, and he continues to appear in subsequent films.
Perry's films, which reach back to African-American urban theater traditions, have been characterized as morality plays, and they often feature a prominent female character whose wisdom and conscience humorously guide the other characters. Perry drew from the influence of his mother and an aunt to create this leading character, nicknamed "Madea," and he plays her with humor, finely attuned to the culture of her community and that of his largely African-American audience.
The persona of Madea is also prominent in his first book, Don't Make a Black Woman Take Off Her Earrings: Madea's Uninhibited Commentaries on Love and Life. Published in 2006, it spent several weeks atop the New York Times best seller list for nonfiction and won prestigious Quill Awards that year in both best humor book and book of the year categories. At any given time, Perry may have several plays in production, movies in the theater, and television shows in the works. According to his official Web site, www.tylerperry.com, Perry currently has two television series under production, House of Payne and Meet the Browns, scheduled to appear on cable television in 2007 and 2008. His most recent film, Daddy's Little Girls, was released in February 2007.
From the June 2007 edition of eJournal USA.
