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Kandi Burruss has spent more than 30 years defying expectations and building opportunities. Her 14 seasons on The Real Housewives of Atlanta made her a star of reality TV and social media; prior to joining the franchise, she had already achieved a measure of fame in the 1990s R&B girl group Xscape. But as much as Burruss enjoys the spotlight, she's savvy enough to look beyond it for longevity and influence: She parlayed her early music-industry success into a career as a Grammy-winning songwriter (for acts including TLC, Destiny's Child and Pink), and she has produced a series of Real Housewives spinoffs for herself—including The Real Housewives of Atlanta: Kandi's Wedding, which chronicled her nuptials to producer Todd Tucker.
Burruss has enjoyed a similar trajectory on Broadway. After making her Main Stem debut in 2018 as the amusingly corrupt prison matron Mama Morton in Chicago, she segued into producing projects that showcased Black stars and stories, including Thoughts of a Colored Man, the Samuel L. Jackson-led The Piano Lesson, which earned a Tony Award nomination for Best Revival, and the family favorite The Wiz starring Wayne Brady. This spring, she and her husband are part of the team bringing Shakespeare's racially charged Othello back to Broadway for the first time in 43 years. Denzel Washington plays the valiant but gullible main character, and Jake Gyllenhaal is the manipulative underling who goads him into jealous rage.
"The only way that change can be made is if you get a seat at the table," explains Burruss about why she's always keen to get involved behind the scenes. "Being talent is fun, but you're not the decision-maker most of the time. You're not the one running the budgets—and that's where the power comes. So it was very important for me to get to this side of Broadway."
In her four years as a theatrical producer, Burruss says she's seen progress in terms of representation, both onstage and backstage. She's proud to be a catalyst. "At the beginning of my journey, when we did Thoughts of a Colored Man, there was a lot of social unrest happening and everybody really wanted change," she recalls. "I wanted to make change by producing thought-provoking shows that normally wouldn't get the opportunity to be seen. That's what pushed me into this, and it's really paid off. The revival of The Piano Lesson was the highest-grossing August Wilson play ever on Broadway, and our audience was much more diverse than at other Broadway shows. Something like 70% of our ticket sales were from first-time Broadway showgoers. We had to open the hearts and minds of people who didn't even realize that Broadway could be for them."
Unlike some celebrity producers who just give money to slap their names on a prestige show, Burruss is a hands-on promoter. She leverages her significant social-media following, and champions her productions in radio and TV. For The Piano Lesson, she even sponsored a dinner-and-a-show package at the Brooklyn Chop House, a restaurant next to the theater.
"You can't do the same old promotions” if you want to attract new audiences, Burruss says. “I do radio shows at syndicated stations across the country to reach more people from out of town. I want to convince them to fly into the city to catch a specific show. Recently, I was on The Rickey Smiley Morning Show, which is not typically a place people go to promote Broadway. But he's in a crazy number of markets and I was able to talk about Othello."
The production begins previews on February 24 at Broadway's Ethel Barrymore Theatre, and Burruss is excited to see how audiences—hopefully full of neophyte theatergoers—respond. "Denzel knew he wanted to come back to Broadway, and this is what he wanted to come back with," she says, adding that while Othello is a tragic character, the actor keeps the vibe fun in the rehearsal room. "Denzel is hilarious. He is funny, he's constantly having little jokes. I told him: 'I didn't realize that you are an undercover comedian!'"
But Othello is just one of Burruss's many current ventures. She's still singing with Xscape and acting on TV, and she runs cosmetics and intimate products lines. She's also a mother of three, and last fall she launched Generation Face Off, a talk show on Amazon Live that features her oldest daughter, Riley, and her delightfully no-nonsense mother, Joyce.
The seemingly tireless multihyphenate admits it's a lot, and yet she's still hoping for more, especially when it comes to Broadway. "I love producing, but I don't want people to forget that I am a performer as well," she says. "I want to go back onstage, and I constantly tell everybody I want to write a musical." (Technically, she already has: the semi-autobiographical A Mother's Love, a short-lived touring show that was also released on video.)
At a time when diversity, equity and inclusion efforts are actively opposed by the federal government, Burruss believes it's more urgent than ever to make sure Broadway remains welcoming to everyone. "Obviously, we have a lot to be worried about," she acknowledges. "We've got to ride these four years out and hope that we can still make great things happen. I'm going to continue to do my part to make sure there's always space for people, no matter what race, color, religion or sexuality. The entertainment space always feels inclusive in my mind. Maybe that's why I work so well in it."
Othello runs from February 24 through June 8, 2025, at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre (243 W 47th St). You can buy tickets here.