Cityscape

John Singleton is Executive Producer of Provocative Movie To Be Filmed in Detroit

February 22, 2015, 10:28 PM by  Allan Lengel

In Greektown, on a snowy Saturday this past weekend, a group of young, local women reported for a casting call at a fourth-floor office suite, hoping to land the leading role in a provocative Detroit movie involving Oscar-nominated filmmaker John Singleton, the executive producer.

It’s called “As the Freak Takes You,” and as the title might suggest, it’s no Disney film.

Native Detroiter Ka’ramuu Kush, the director of the film who now calls LA home, attended the audition session Saturday, and explained that the filmmakers have cast a wide net in search of an actress to play the lead role of Summer Hughes, an “omnisexual woman,” someone who appears to be undiscriminating when it comes to romantic partners and sexuality.

“Basically the film focuses on her simultaneous relationships with three different lovers,” explains Kush.  “One is a bisexual white man, one is a bi-racial lesbian woman and one is a celibate black man.”

Kush says the crew has now held casting calls in Los Angeles and Detroit, and has been encouraging anyone around the country to submit a video reading for the role on the film’s Facebook page or via email. They're looking for someone who is an unknown, fresh talent, who is African American.  

He says they’ll take the best candidate from anywhere, but would prefer a Detroiter playing the Detroit character, rather than someone acting as a Detroiter.

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Director and writer Ka'ramuu Kush (front with hat), casting associate Mary Ann Mangano and actor Mo McRae, a producer, conducted the auditions on Saturday in Greektown.

“Detroiters have a certain sort of flavor,” he said. “They have a certain way of speaking and of being."

Besides the casting call, Kush, whose work as a writer/director includes the HBO special, Salvation Road,  says the makers of the film were out  Friday night , hitting some local topless joints, like the Penthouse on 8 Mile Road in Detroit, “scouting for talent,” looking for a possible Summer Hughes.

The filmmakers describe the character on Facebook as  “fit, natural coifed, subtly fine with a runner’s build. An ominsexual force of nature who simply dares to be different, while exploring the intersection of sexuality and spirituality. She’s a former stripper and fledgling artist. She’s piercingly intelligent, well-read, unapologetically sensual (not to be confused with hyper-sexual) and makes no apologies for what she thinks, feels or does.”

About 20 women came to audition Saturday that ran from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. One by one, they entered a tiny room and read some lines in front of Kush, actor Mo McRae of Los Angeles, who is one of the producers of the film, and Mary Ann Mangano, a casting associate who is also the locations manager. John Singleton, the executive producer for the movie, was not there.

Some who auditioned are expected to get a second look.

Kalette Willis was one of the woman at the audition.

One of the woman who came for the reading was Kalette Willis, 26,  a single mom with a six-month-old baby girl.  Willis is a student at Wayne County Community College and is in the National Guard, a part-time job.
 
She says she is not intimidated by the sexuality of the character.

“I think this role is good for me,” said Willis. “I don’t have any problems with doing this. It’s not really superficial. It’s kind of like real."

And she likes the way the audition went.

"They liked me, so it went good," she said.

Kush says the the crew held the open casting call Saturday ” to give people the opportunity who may not have the agent or manager and formal protocol to be seen for the role. They can be seen like this.”

Kush wrote the movie script, and says his work has always focused on women.

“I do films and stories about things that I love and I happen to love women and so that’s what I focus on.”

He says he expects the film to be controversial.

"Definitely. I think whenever you're talking about a woman and her choices, it's going to be controversial. Because we find far too often men are determining or dictating what happens with a woman's womb or her body more so than she is." He said the cast will include Felicia Pearson, who played "Snoop" in HBO's The Wire. She'll play a lesbian lover in the film.

Actor Mo McRae, who is working as a producer for the movie, says when it comes to authenticity in Detroit, it helps that Kush is a native.  He said they’re also using other locals “who have their finger on the pulse and they can give us guidance on authenticity. “ One of those people is Ira Todd, a Detroit Police investigator who is working as a consultant for the film, and Mikey Eckstein, owner of the Detroit-based entertainment company, Embarco, who is assisting in the production.

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Women wait for their turn to audition.

Kush attended Cooley High School, but left without graduating in the 1990s, to pursue a more creative career path. He says he got an undergrad degree in writing, literature and arts from the New School University in New York and an MFA in classical drama from Sarah Lawrence College in Westchester County, N.Y.  He also got a masters in filmmaking at American Film Institute in Los Angeles. 

“This is like coming full circle, having left back when I did looking for artistic cultivation. I went to New York and LA.”

“There’s so much going on here artistically. It speaks to this fresh new artistic spirit that didn’t exist back when I left Detroit.”



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