In life, Nina Simone was a spell-binding musician and a heroine to black Americans who saw her songs as part of the struggle for civil rights. But her story is to be told by a white Englishman, who has acquired the rights to her songs and intends to produce a biographical show in London and New York.
The news stunned the team behind Little Girl Blue: The Nina Simone Musical, which was first performed in 2019, who were dismayed to find that her estate had sold the rights overseas.
Laiona Michelle, the show’s writer and star, and Rashad Chambers, a Broadway producer, who are both black, said they were told the rights had been snapped up by Barney Wragg, a white British producer. “We feel this is our story and our narrative to tell,” Chambers said. “Simone was a social justice activist who understood the time she was living in. Unfortunately we seem to be reliving the past and fighting many of those same battles.”
Wragg told The Daily Beast that his company had been working on a musical “for some time” and had secured the rights to her “autobiography and the associated life rights in 2019”. He said that he was pondering legal action against Little Girl Blue, which opened this week in a theatre in Connecticut.
Simone died in France in 2003 leaving her royalties to fund a charity that supported the education of children in Africa, according to the website TMZ. Her daughter Lisa Simone Kelly administered the estate but was accused of misappropriating funds and was stripped of her responsibilities. Family members have since complained that they have no say in how her estate is managed.
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Seeking to revive Little Girl Blue in the wake of Black Lives Matter, Chambers said they were told the rights had been sold to Wragg. “My show is written by and starring a black woman,” he said. “We are doing our best to be as inclusive for this story as we can.”
