according to a los angeles times article this summer major film studios music labels and streaming services promised donations to anti-racist non-profits and declared their commitment to diversity tonight we talked to a person dedicated to bringing diversity to hollywood by creating content that celebrates the human spirit it's good to have you here from los angeles this is klcs pbs welcome to everybody with angela williamson an innovation arts education and public affairs program everybody with angela williamson is made possible by viewers like you thank you and now your host dr angela williamson tonight's guest is alonzo wilson alonzo thank you so much for being here thank you for having me i want you to tell us a little bit about yourself all right i am a screenwriter producer former costume designer i've worked on shows and design costumes for the wire treme and i've had exhibits in mckissick museum and such for these costumes and currently i'm working on a few other secret projects so you have this amazing work as a costume designer so tell us a little bit of what i would see if i went to one of these museums well if you went to the museum and saw the treme exhibit you would see the mardi gras indians that we created for the show and those have been traveling around the country for a few years they've been in the emmy exhibit at fitm for the emmy awards a couple times and that's really where you would see them if you went they would see the mardi gras indians that we created for that how difficult is it for you as a costume designer to design for different shows well it's not really difficult because what happens is you build characters based on what someone's written so therefore it's it's a collaborative effort where you talk with producers and you find out where these characters are so it's not a difficult process it's just a collaborative process that changes from each production so tell us a little bit where you're from and how did you get to the direction you're at now yeah it's interesting because i started in wilmington north carolina in my hometown they built a studio there dino de laurentiis the deg studios and at the time i was actually working at the university as a stage manager and a wonderful woman came in and worked there and said oh you need to be in film and tv and this is also the great thing about diversity because you don't know where you can get an opportunity right so for us it was like okay i'll give it a try so i started working as a production assistant and an assistant to the designer clifford capone and worked for about eight or nine films under his wing and he taught me so many things so my my start was in wilmington north carolina which is so odd because it's a small town and they built a studio there so again it's a amazing opportunity that i didn't think was going to happen and it's just evolved so how do you get from north carolina to southern california hollywood capital well you take a long trip for like four or five days but uh yeah i drove cross country my first time in california actually was come to do a film with oliver stone called heaven and earth and i was coming to be the costume supervisor and we were filming in thailand so that's how i got to california but i didn't actually move to california that time i went back to north carolina and continued to work and was able to do shows like dawson's creek i did army wives in south carolina and so it was in a little bit of one tree hill so it was back and forth to north carolina and i didn't come to la really until this latter part of the career where i changed from costume design to screenwriting and producing so in the last eight years have been the transition to california aka hollywood so let's talk about that transition that you've made tell us a little bit about what you have going on right now so right now what we're really doing is we're working specifically on our shows that are my mantra things that celebrate the human spirit so it's spirit medicine productions we really try to tell stories and that are about i guess would be overcoming right so overcoming different things and at this point we're talking about diversity but those stories can come from anyone right so celebrating the human spirit seem to be the most inclusive of humanity so it doesn't really matter what race or religion or culture you are it's like can you celebrate someone's human spirit of just surviving and getting through something difficult so we decided that that is the lane that we're in we develop a program to entice young people who don't think they have chops to be a writer or producer but we give them an opportunity to tell those stories and therefore we shape them and hopefully we can take them into production and we have a few things going right now so and there's so much there that i want to follow up on but the first thing i want to follow up on is that you talked a little bit about celebrating the human spirit do you find that people are wanting stories like that a lot as of right now i do think so i think i think it's always been there but i think we haven't broadened the net to find out that there's more people who have stories to tell and to celebrate so that's where we are it's like we're trying to broaden that and raise the percentage of what what do those stories look like who who are telling those stories and where these people come from it's not just one group anymore a few groups we need to widen it so we thought if we reach out to the underserved communities to at-risk youth however we can get there and say hey you know do you have a story to tell what's your life been like so we pay attention to what people are no disregarding regardless of where you're from so i think it is important to think about it from that level you have a personal philosophy of staying in your lane so tell us a little bit about that well it's interesting uh we've talked about that before and i was speaking to one of your other guests in the green room um it's important when you think about a lane it's like where is the power in your voice to bring something some action right so for me if it's costume even though that's in a past i will go there but right now it's about storytelling and i i'm not an activist so i'm not the person that's going to go out and be the political advocate you know for anything but i can do this in a different way so my lane is storytelling my lane is film and tv so i'm going to stay in that lane and find a way to have a voice and a diverse voice in that lane so and then otherwise you know it just becomes watered down you don't know where you stand or what you can really do but that's the power of it i think it's to stay what you know and what you can really offer and to be helpful and one way that you've done that is by working with a non-profit so tell us a little bit about what you're doing with that nonprofit in the name yes absolutely it's manifest works and i have been very fortunate to be a part of it i went in to this organization as a speaker as a guest the organization is a workforce organization that serves previously incarcerated previously homeless and also adults who grew up in foster care and we groomed them to become production assistants in the film industry and this is a great stepping stone to get into the industry and basically for us it is an intensive program about learning your self-worth is to recognizing who you are so in 12 weeks they don't just learn the actual skills of being a production assistant they learn life skills they learn how do you save money how how do you create financial you know support for yourself how do you navigate freelance film industry how do you fill out a job application how do you fill out all the forms you need to do when you go to a film job how do you navigate unemployment between jobs it's an incredible organization that really reshapes and actually gives you acknowledgement and confirmation that you are worth and you have the ability to be in this industry tell us about the production you just finished in georgia oh right so that film is called quiet in my town the director is michael carney he's also the writer i met michael on another film in mississippi called same kind of different as me and five years later he called me to do my old job which is costume design i said michael i'm not doing that anymore he says what are you doing and i told him he said well let me call you back so at any rate we filmed in thomasville georgia the film actually is a lot about diversity it's about the problems that youth face in the world of like how to navigate adult things like uh abortion or race relations we have a story about an interracial couple in a small town it's about religion it's about what religion thinks of all of these things and it's a very very important story but it's currently in post-production we wanted to get it obviously a cinematic release but we may be trying to change gears for that because of covet and therefore it may be broken down into some series of episodes but it's at this point it's in post-production and we hope to have it out in 2021 but it's a very good story about community and relations between people different types of people so that's a diverse story that we're doing quiet in my town and you can't tell us all the details but you have some things under development right now so can you give us an overview of what that is i think one of the coolest things is a is a series based on a book called distant cousin and it's being rebranded as moon girl but the story is important because it's a girl who comes from outer space to save humanity and we brought it up to date because it's an older book to be relevant to today's situation we're dealing with cultural and ethnic and social and economic issues right so that show has been re-imagined into this current world which also will celebrate diversity and it's really incredible that we don't know where it's going but we're in the process of pitching and landing it somewhere as well we also have another show that we will not say the name of but it is also about not only diversity but just about the justice system and how unfair that is and how someone spent 42 years incarcerated when they should not have been and i can't wait till that comes out so we we're doing all of these stories again that celebrate the human spirit at spirit medicine production so just to name a few and what kind of productions are you looking for in you don't have in development right now but you want to look for to have development in the future well i really want young stories i want teenagers or younger people who have a story about themselves or their grandmother anything they can think of that might inspire them or just that's we're looking for we need youth stories because the power of youth right now if you look at what we've had in the front lines of this movement they're young people they've taken the reins and we need to hear their stories and listen to their voices thank you so much for your commitment to diversity and tv and film i cannot wait to see what comes from spirit medicine productions thank you for having me [Music] [Applause] [Music] you'll see [Applause] [Music] tonight's guest is jt turner jt thank you so much for being here sister angela i really appreciate you having me super excited by the way love sister angela that's my sister you know you know first tell us a little bit about you and we'll get into your background later but tell us about you um really really quick i'm a stand-up comedian slash actor um i'm out of los angeles california um been doing comedy probably about 13 14 years now so the last couple years i've been dibbling dabbling a little bit in to acting so i actually got some stuff um premiering now and um so i've been real thankful for that to happen for me right now so how difficult is it or i'm not going to say difficult i'm going to say what how challenging is it to go from stand-up comedian to an actor you know what for me right now it's not it's it's super cool uh just because the roles that i've been playing are kind of like roles that are very simple you know to me i'm just it's not in depth you know what i mean i'm not i'm dying at a bridge and need to cry um so you know the roles that i've gotten have been like kind of catered to my style because i'm like a you know comedic actor um so it's the actually the transition isn't that bad i mean just being in front of a live audience though you can feel that energy but when you're on set it's a lot of do you stop cut go again all right switch it so it's a lot of that um but the transition is it's it's been cool you know i mean it's been amazing i'm super excited i love it i want more you know well speaking of more you just had a film released early 2020 right yeah so it's it's actually a series yes and it's on amazon prime and it's called the date and i actually play a a police officer or a detective his name is uh banks so detective banks is who i play and uh it's it's not as hardcore as you would think you know i play with the roll a little bit but um yeah i like it i'm excited i could carry a gun and a badge i'm arresting people i arrested director the director the other day you know because he was out of line so i had to take him in you know so the early beginnings of jt turner and jt turner from the comedian businessman now you're the actor yes oh that's a good question phenomenal by the way well i went to school for business administration so i always had that in the background so what i actually did was it's for me um it's called show business right so i was killing the show part but i was like i'm missing out on the best part business part meaning like for revenue so what i did was i created a brand so i started running my own comedy room as well so it's called the greentree comedy club so i was doing weekly shows there we even transitioned to three days a week so i was able to capitalize on that as well and i was able to put on other comedians so up and coming comics but we had some really good established comics that came out as well so um i ran that um as well it was it was now that was a difficult part i mean a lot of people see comedy and they're like oh you guys are just out there having fun and i'm like man the behind the scenes sometimes you know can be kind of crucial because now i finally seen it from a producer's side because the comics would calmly be like uh jt and i'm like oh here we go i can't make it and it's like man the show is like 30 minutes like me you can't make it so you would always have to try to get comics really really fast but um i really like the business side because it kind of showed me um you know i can be a little bit more empathetic towards other people's feelings like i would want them to be with me as far as a comic and a producer so but it's it's actually helped me establish a lot of new connections and um and i felt like i'm i'm giving back to comedians because i remember when i first got on it was very hard to get stage time you know you would um ask people people for stage time so i created my own format where i was actually getting stage time every night as well you know what i mean even though i was running the whole show that one kid is still there if that parent ain't picked him up yet oh they attitude change then don't they you know what where is your mama talking to the kid like he know where his mama's at so edgar uh is your mom coming to pick you up today and he three he just got there he barely got there from the in-home program he don't know nothing you know how they rush them kids there they be one and a half time well he was on the rollover program he's got priority we got to put him in so he can't even speak he's like where is your mama mama yeah where is your mama hacker mama yeah are you my mama no we looking for her first of all you talked a little bit about helping out your fellow comedians yes so talk a little bit about this community because it sounds like you you all are supportive of each other so talk a little bit about that you know what um yes we are supportive of each other um it gave me and i i felt like it was like i would have new comics come to me and i was in this position as well i remember as a new comic i would go to someone like hey man can i get some time we call it some time need some stage time and then they'll be like ah yeah some of them would say yay some would say no so i was in a position where i told myself if a new comic comes up to me and asks for stage time i'm gonna give it to him but i'm gonna give it to him in the correct way so this is how i would do it and i'm probably giving away the secret but who cares so they'll come up to me hey man can i get stage time i said have you ever done comedy before and they were like no but i love it you know you guys are funny i want to be funny i said come back next week and tell me again and then i'll wait for the next week and if they would come and they'd be like hey man can i do it and i'm like all right not this time but come next week right now the reason why i did that to see how bad they really wanted it because what happens is people see it and they like oh this is easy like i can do it but you don't understand the parts that follow it as well you know what i mean so they would come back and then they would be like okay um jt i'm here and i'm like you know what man i'm glad you made it i said yeah i'll put you on and they'd be like all right cool so i would say watch the show and then we'll talk so they will watch the show now i will watch them now if they're there heckling or laughing or doing things inappropriate we would have a conversation after and they would be like i would be like listen they were like hey man did you hear me i was saying funny stuff i'm like yeah i heard you but this isn't the right time to do it i said you got to understand what goes into being a comedian it's not just going upstage i said you have to respect fellow comedians as well so you can't be in the audience yelling back and forth trying to be funny and they'd be like wow okay i didn't realize that of course you did so then you need to learn i said look give me i'll give you three minutes next week since you're committed came a couple of times and i said but you got to bring you got to bring some people and they were like oh you just want me to bring people i said no you it's a confidence thing i mean all the people that have probably told you you need to be a comedian then they need to come out and see you so that way you can build confidence you know what i mean i don't want to build no one up for failure i want i want people i want everyone to succeed you know i like to be around successful people and if i'm in if i'm the forehead of someone being successful i like that too i like i want someone to become the next huge comic that way they can be like in the story they can be like you know what scotty jt little ball hit a guy you know he put me on and i'd be in there like yeah i did i did for the wrong like that makes me feel well so you talked a lot about being and you didn't call it this but you are a mentor to new comments coming up and you're walking through the process yes so who is your mentor and why oh so it's one of the people that helped me um all right so in in the uh inland empire there's a guy named lj brown okay and he's a comedian and what he did for me was a godsend he said so i got this show this show this show come with me come with me and i'll put you on so we would go to different spots he would take me different night clubs different comedy clubs and then he would tell him hey this my man jt put them on so that's one of my guys that i actually forehand worked with um and he kind of showed me a little direction in the comedy game so i really appreciate it so my in my capacity i try to give back to to the new comics as much as possible do you find that the way that you do comedy in the past is different today because of everything that's happening around us and how have you adjusted oh man you know what since covet things have shut down a little bit we've been doing zooms comedy on zooms which is tough i actually did a comedy show in orlando on the phone on the phone it was a radio station orlando they reached out to me they said hey can you make these people laugh and on the phone like you get no reaction back so it's like yeah you know yeah and it's like nothing all right cool so then you just got to keep going so it was a little uncomfortable but i see what the the stage that we're in right now but um just me as as anything it's like development right so i i've developed as a comic and a lot of people if people sometimes people see you they'd be like you know because people think only comedians that are funny or only only people that are funny comedians are the ones that like on tv all the time or things of that nature but there's so many comics right now that are like one inch away from being the next big thing so i i and being in the realm of man there's so many comics that are just so hilarious they're like one step away so i'm still in the i'm still in the development stage like i'm still learning every day even though i've been in it for so i'm open to learn i don't think i know everything i'm still trying to learn so i can get that edge because the thing about um entertainment it's you got to be ready yes even if you even if you get no's nose no not yet not yet not yet you can't you got to be relentless and you got to be ready because that one time somebody could call you and bam they could bam you got to be there so and so what do you mean by edge for all of us who don't understand that what edge means what do you mean by edge so edge you mean like okay let me tell back a little bit so you mean edge like edge edgy comedy or like they're on the edge of making it big gotcha yes but you haven't quite hit it yet um man what it means is you you know they're ready you know what i mean you know they're ready like they're in there they're in their senior year and graduation is coming and you could just see it the first you can just see it coming right they're seasoned they just one snap away from someone saying the correct the right person like it's so funny my family had come to the show man you funny man you so funny you you ready i'm like yeah i wish she was a producer telling me that that i'm ready you know to me thank you mama appreciate you mama appreciate you but i need this producer in hollywood to have the same faith in me that you have so it's uh yeah but there's a lot of comics on on there and everybody's one step away like even even when people don't think if people don't believe in you like they're like wow that guy's not funny or it doesn't you know i i feel like it doesn't matter what people think it's what you think it's how you present yourself right um because that when when god puts you in a position no one can falter that no matter what you know you need people to tell you like i needed people to tell me i'm not funny sometimes i needed people to be like oh you had a bad set or oh jt i needed that because you know what that made me do it made me work harder you know you're very educated you're a doctor right so every now and then your professor they do this on purpose they'll look at your paper and be like come on over here now you know this paper right here you could they challenge you on that in your mind you're like but i wait a minute i was up nine days in a row and i did this paper but they challenge you to be better if everything someone saw from you like oh that's good oh that's perfect you would lose your edge you know great it depends if you want to be if you want to be in the game if you want to be good or do you want to be great there is levels to this business you can make money being in the game you can make money being good but if you want to have a legacy you want to be great you got to put the extra work in you know so yeah jt there's so much more we're going to hear from you so thank you again for joining us tonight thank you for having me i appreciate this format i appreciate your show and you're amazing by the way thank you thank you that's why i'm having you here and thank you for joining us on everybody with angela williamson viewers like you make this show possible stay in touch with us on social media good night and stay well thank you [Music] you