Phylicia Rashad guides a comedy about family drama to Charlotte. Is Broadway next?
On a steamy mid-July day in Times Square, right next to the famed Birdland Jazz Club, a reunion of sorts is unfolding in a second-floor studio hosting rehearsals for a play bound for Charlotte — and perhaps back to Broadway, too.
That show is “Immediate Family,” a comedy centered on family drama by Tony Award winner Paul Oakley Stovall. He’s the playwright/actor/singer who also worked in the Obama White House and considers Charlotte his second artistic home, next to Chicago.
Its director is his long-time friend Phylicia Rashad, hot on the heels of helming this year’s Tony Award winner for Best Play, “Purpose.” Rashad is beloved for her lengthy acting career, from portraying Clair Huxtable on “The Cosby Show” to turning up on this season’s “The Gilded Age” on HBO Max. She also has two Tonys.
And Rashad’s no stranger to the Charlotte region either. Her mom and her grandparents hail from Chester, South Carolina, and she still has family in the area.
Blumenthal Arts is taking the rare step of producing “Immediate Family.” It’ll be at Booth Playhouse in uptown for a monthlong run from July 29-Aug. 31. (A free panel discussion on July 28 with Rashad, Stovall and cast members quickly sold out.)
“Immediate Family” revolves around adult siblings in a Black family in Chicago who reunite for a wedding, and the drama that ensues: One of the brothers, Jesse, is gay but his family doesn’t know that. His boyfriend happens to be the white wedding photographer from Sweden who recently proposed to Jesse.
Infidelity, religion and sibling rivalry are among the other topics that emerge over a long weekend under the same roof and a game of cards called Bid Whist. Blumenthal Arts pitched the show as “Modern Family” meets “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.”
Stovall is gay, but identifies with all of the characters, not just Jesse. “As any good playwright will tell you, every character is me. If it isn’t, there’s a problem.”
The Charlotte Observer spoke with Rashad and Stovall last week at the New York rehearsal studio about their bond, why the play feels “of the moment” and their affinity for Charlotte. By now, cast and crew are in the Queen City, working on technical rehearsals. (The interviews occurred before the recent, unexpected death of Rashad’s “Cosby Show” costar Malcolm-Jamal Warner.)
Seeing the play with ‘fresh eyes’
This is the third major production of “Immediate Family,” and the first in the Southeast.
The play debuted in Chicago in 2012, followed by a Los Angeles run three years later. Rashad directed those shows, too, and Stovall insisted the only way he was going to put on the latest version was with Rashad.
For her part, Rashad has referred to Stovall in interviews as a “Renaissance man,” citing his varied interests from poetry to politics.
More on that in a moment. But first, a little history.
Stovall and Rashad go way back, to Mississippi, when they were briefly involved in an early version of a different play over a dozen years ago. The two hit it off.
He noticed Rashad’s info on the contact sheet and emailed her a copy of his “Immediate Family” script, figuring he had nothing to lose. He’d been working on it for awhile.
Rashad wrote back a few days later, Stovall recalled. She was interested. She also guided him to whittling down the locations of scenes from seven or eight to a single site, the family home.
When the play premiered in 2012, it was just weeks after President Barack Obama and the NAACP endorsed gay marriage. In 2015, it opened in Los Angeles, the same year the U.S. Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage nationally.
Now, a decade later, Rashad and Stovall are revisiting the show at a time when LGBTQ rights and DEI are under intense scrutiny at the national level, starting with President Donald Trump.
Stovall appreciated the opportunity to examine the show “with fresh eyes” while resisting the urge to add commentary about today’s fraught politics. “I have to let my art speak for itself,” he said, “and let the chips fall where they may.”
Just the other night, Rashad was reminded of how the play continues to resonate.
She was thinking of a man she knew who had spent a tremendous amount of money preparing for his daughter’s wedding only for her to come out a few days before the ceremony.
“This is what it means to be universal. You could tell this story anywhere in the world, in any culture,” Rashad said. “This story or something like it takes place in families every day.”
What will audiences make of the show?
When asked what he wants audiences to take away from “Immediate Family,” Stovall called it an easy question.
“I hope that they see themselves in each of the characters. That they walk away knowing that life is not a destination, that you take each obstacle as it comes along and you just do the best you can.”
He also hopes that people will leave the theater recognizing themselves or another family member, or a familiar argument, and talk about the show for days to come. Because while “Immediate Family” focuses on one Black family in Chicago, the conflicts, the humor and the love are things that are universal.
To Rashad, “It’s a play about family and how close you can be, and still miss each other. It’s a story of acceptance of one’s own self and acceptance of others.
“For some people, it will be pure entertainment, and that’s good. And maybe for some people it will seem a little risqué. And maybe for other people, it will spark inquiry and conversation,” Rashad said. “I think all of those things are fine. It brings you in. It shows you the range of humanity.
“That’s what art does.”
Affection for Charlotte
So why does Stovall have such an affinity for Charlotte? In large part, that’s due to Blumenthal Arts President and CEO Tom Gabbard.
That’s also where Stovall’s politics enters the scene.
When the Democratic National Convention was in Charlotte in 2012 to nominate Obama for a second term, Stovall was working as a surrogate supervisor. Basically, he helped get stars like Eva Longoria, Aisha Tyler and Alfre Woodward to interviews or other appearances.
But Stovall and his team were staying outside of the security perimeter ringing parts of uptown, meaning it could take him upwards of an hour or more to get to work. That’s when friends of his approached Gabbard for help.
He not only volunteered his wife to help drive them around, but offered something else: lodging inside the security zone.
Gabbard turned the chorus dressing rooms underneath Belk Theater into a type of makeshift motel, complete with lamps and air mattresses. “So we lived in the bottom of the Blumenthal,” Stovall said, chuckling. “There were so many events right above us. We could just go upstairs, and there’s Bill Clinton.”
He was reminded of that experience when he returned to the theater, and acting, as George Washington in the touring company of “Hamilton” in 2019.
Stovall continued to act as well as direct and write more plays. In 2022, he won a Tony as a producer of Best Musical “A Strange Loop.” And at Gabbard’s urging, he’s twice returned to Charlotte — for cabaret shows, and to work with students in the Blumeys, the local high school musical theater awards program.
He likes that Charlotte affords him the space to create outside the glare of “critics and judges.”
As for Rashad, she has fond childhood memories of the area. “I remember Charlotte as a graceful place, as a kind place. ... Now it’s a big, mega-city,” but the people remain kind and she still returns here on occasion.
What’s next for ‘Immediate Family’?
For now, Blumenthal Arts is the lone producer of “Immediate Family.”
Gabbard shouted out both the talented local team working on the show and the fact that the set was built in North Carolina.
“Our aspiration is to do some more of this,” said Gabbard, whose arts group has solely produced shows only on occasion. “But this is a grand experiment.”
He slotted the play as part of the Blumenthal season’s Broadway Lights series.
Gabbard’s also pitched this as a potential pre-Broadway run. But he well knows that path is impossible to predict. It may take years for a show to reach Broadway, or it could take on a life of its own in regional theater.
Rashad gently brushed aside questions about Broadway.
“What I’m interested in is the work we’re doing. How can we find authenticity? How creative can we be and how deep can we go?”
Stovall’s ready to go with Rashad on whatever journey the show takes. And he’s eager to have Charlotte audiences see the play.
“I think that the community that we most want to bring in is the Southern black community. That’s the community that migrated north to Chicago, where this play is set. ... So I’m very interested in how the play will be received in the South.”
He’s also a little nervous about the reception, but said that’s OK. “There’s no reason to do theater if you’re not a little scared,” Stovall said.
It reminds you, he said, that you’re alive.
‘Immediate Family’
Where: Booth Playhouse, 130 N. Tryon St., Charlotte (in Founder’s Hall).
When: July 29-Aug. 31.
Ticket info: blumenthalarts.org
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This story was originally published July 23, 2025 at 11:10 AM with the headline "Phylicia Rashad guides a comedy about family drama to Charlotte. Is Broadway next?."
