“Harriet” star Cynthia Erivo has been tapped to star in a new musical drama called “Talent Show.”
According to The Hollywood Reporter, the project will be directed by Gandja Monteiro, who also serves as one of the directors on Lena Waithe’s Showtime series, “The Chi.”
Waithe reportedly wrote the latest version of the script from an earlier version by Aimee Lagos. “Talent Show” is based on an idea from Step Up franchise, Save the Last Dance writer Duane Adler and centers on a failed songwriter who returns home to Chicago to lead a group of at-risk youth in their annual talent show, per Deadline.
Erivo rose to prominence after being nominated for two Academy Awards, for best actress and best song, for the biopic “Harriet.”
This year, she was the only Black actor nominated at the Oscars this year.
“The whole thing is loopy,” she told the New York Times at the time. “It’s not enough that I’m the only one. It just isn’t,” she said, noting that “far too much work was done this year by incredible women and men of color that should be celebrated.”
The upcoming project will not be Erivo’s first time starring in a musical. In 2016, she starred as Celie in “The Color Purple” musical on Broadway and nabbed herself a Tony for Best Actress.
Speaking to Oprah Magazine, Erivo says she has always followed her passion, acting.
“In the back of my mind I knew what it was I wanted to do, and I was unashamed of seeing that through,” she said. “So, I think in a way, I had manifested it, but I really just followed what had been happening and allowed things to come in, and tried to be present in the moment. And to give those things you didn’t know were possible space to be there.”
