Director, producer, actor and playwright Tyler Perry first started writing letters of his abusive and poverty-ridden New Orleans childhood in 1992 as a therapeutic way to deal with his past. Over the next 15 years, the talented artist would adapt those letters into his first hit musical “I know I’ve Been Changed,” stage a number of other plays focused on the African-American community and urban theatre, find a surprising box office hit in Diary of a Mad Black Woman, and sign an unprecedented 100 episode deal with TBS for his real-life-issues sitcom “Tyler Perry’s House of Payne,” before the first episode premiered.
Now Perry wants to get personal with his audience in a digital way, and has teamed up with William Morris Talent Agency and Narrowstep media player for his own talkshow coming this month, The Tyler Perry Show.
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“Part of being an artist is learning how to engage and empower my audience, my fans, with my art,” said Perry. “My art is an extension of my life. I knew I wanted to create, tailor and build an Internet TV channel as a part of that extension.”
Tyler Perry TV is reportedly the first of many partnerships between Narrowstep and William Morris clients, which hopes to bring a number of branded celebrity TV channels to the web, and marks the latest step of Hollywood’s more mainstream talent’s walk to the web.
It’s also about time WMA made some public moves in the online video space. CAA has backed Will Ferrel’s Funny or Die, while UTA has started 60Frames and has a client list that reads like the ‘Who’s Who of Internet Video.”
