Kandi Burruss Is Betting Big on Broadway

In 2021, Kandi Burruss overheard a comment that she says crystallized her mission as a theater producer. She was listening in on a post-show talkback for the first play she had produced for Broadway, Thoughts of Colored Man, when an older white woman asked a question. “At the time, there were a couple other shows that were starring African-American talent on stage,” Burruss recalls to me on a mid-March afternoon in Manhattan, twirling her fork around a strand of Maine lobster spaghetti. “And [the woman] said, ‘Well, I think it’s great that we have these shows that are starring African-American talent. But don’t you think you guys shouldn’t put so many up at once so it doesn’t pull the ticket sales away from each other?’” At the time, Burruss was speechless. With a look of performative confusion, she lets out a sigh. “It was as if we could only do one at a time, like only one could make it.”

Today, as she sits across from me at the Italian hotspot Cecconi’s, enviably fashionable in a handprint-covered suit fresh off Area’s FW24 runway (matching top hat included), the multi-hyphenate finds the whole situation rather funny. Aside from the obvious issues—why should there only be one Black anything—she also thinks the woman’s question demonstrated a limited imagination about the possible paths to success. Sure, the usually white, usually wealthy, New York residents who regularly shell out for expensive Broadway tickets might be reluctant to support multiple Black-led shows at once. But Burruss—an actor; a celebrated singer and Grammy-winning songwriter; the owner of several businesses, including two restaurants; and perhaps most famously, the longest-running cast member on Bravo’s Real Housewives of Atlanta—doesn’t come from that world. She isn’t approaching her job in the same way.

“I’m a music industry person,” announces Burruss, 48, who has gone on to produce three more Broadway shows in the five years since that incident. (All four have centered Black talent.) “I believe that you go into every market, every city, you do radio across the country, you go in all the small markets and push, push, push.” Burruss has found a useful way to apply this skillset in her new position. As her producing partner, Brian Moreland, tells me over email, “Kandi’s values are rooted in honesty, truth, respect, and the belief in a hard day’s work done with dignity and grace. Those qualities aren’t exclusive to any one field—they’re universally transferable.”

And it’s already paid dividends for the reality star. It’s because of that nontraditional marketing strategy that “ticket buyers fly in from other cities to come support [her] shows.” It’s what turned Thoughts, the first Broadway play to be written, directed, starring, and lead-produced by a team of all-Black artists, into a surprising success, despite being one of the first shows to open after the pandemic-induced closure of Broadway. It’s what pushed her 2022 revival of The Piano Lesson to conclude its run as the highest-grossing August Wilson Broadway play in history.

It’s also what inspires me to make a toast to the Broadway producer as we make our way through a 90-minute lunch today. We’re just two days out from opening night for her latest endeavor: a modern-day update of Othello, Shakespeare’s searing play about racism, jealousy, lies, and deceit, which stars Oscar-winner Denzel Washington in the titular role and Oscar-nominee Jake Gyllenhaal as his two-faced nemesis, Iago. While many producers might be nervous in anticipation, Burruss already has cause to celebrate. Less than a week before our shared meal, it was reported that the revival grossed $2.8 million over a single week, the most any nonmusical has ever made in that timespan. “You know, I’m very competitive,” Burruss beams as she raises her “Italian Ice” mocktail into the sky for a congratulatory cheers. “It wasn’t a thing that I was trying to do. But…you know…anytime you can break records or are making history, it’s like, Woohoo, I must be doing something right.”

Producing Broadway shows may not have been the expected next endeavor for the already quite busy Burruss, who left RHOA in February 2024 after a record 14-season run. But after participating in musical theater at Georgia’s Tri-Cities High School and taking the stage for an eight-week run as Matron “Mama” Morton in Chicago almost two-and-a-half decades later, Burruss sees it as a natural pivot. She’s quick to credit Moreland for showing her the ropes, though, if you ask him, “Kandi has been such a natural.” According to Moreland, it’s Burruss’ “willingness to be a vessel for the story and the team” and her innate “transparent, honest, fiercely dedicated, and endlessly generous” nature that has made her such a quick study.

Not that she’s ever been intimidated in unfamiliar spaces. After all, this is the same woman who, in 2011, launched a sex-focused web series and accompanying line of adult sex toys, much to the dismay of family and friends. “I was just talking, not really realizing that I was kind of changing the stigma [around female sexuality],” she says about the talk show. “I don’t have shame. I used to always dream about being on the cover of certain magazines, and people would say, ‘Bigger brands are not going to want you if you have a sexual thing.’ But then I realized that it was only three or four Black women who were ever shown in the mainstream anyway.” She shrugs. “I was just like, I’m sitting here waiting to be picked, for what? I’m going to start my own brand and let the people support me. It ended up working for me, and it inspired other people, too.”

When I point out the parallels between those early boundary-breaking ventures and what she’s doing now on Broadway, she initially seems surprised, like she hadn’t considered the thought. But her entire career has been a nonstop cycle of making room for people who look like her in spaces where they wouldn’t normally be, whether she’s taking the reins as a songwriter for other artists or stepping into her own as an entrepreneur. She eventually comes around to what I’m saying. “I do feel like you can’t really make moves or make a real change unless you’re in the rooms with the people who are making decisions,” she says. “I just like having a say.”

These latest moves are coming at an interesting time for Burruss. Though stepping down from RHOA has definitely opened up her schedule, it’s quickly been re-filled thanks to bigger career goals, such as becoming a “successful, established actress”—something her “first position” status at Bravo had impeded in the past. “I’ve had situations where I couldn’t accept a role, or couldn’t even audition, because of my obligations to Bravo,” she shares. She’s still in business with the network—she has a development deal for a few new reality programs she’s hoping get picked up—and though she doesn’t foresee a return to the franchise, she swears there’s no bad blood. “I didn’t leave mad. I didn’t leave bitter. I’m not telling people to not watch the show.”

She’s also diving headfirst back into music. After her girl group Xscape embarked on the 30-city “Queens of R&B Tour” with SWV last summer, she’s excited to do even more live shows. And don’t forget her development work with rising trio Psiryn; their debut single “Sober” recently became the first girl group-led song to top Billboard’s Adult R&B Airplay chart in 23 years.

With everything on her plate, she’d be forgiven for wanting to slow down. Instead, she’s already in the process of mounting her next Broadway show. (“You always have to work on your next move while you’re in your current move,” she casually lets off.) And that’s to say nothing of Kandi & Todd Vision, the fledgling film production studio she runs alongside her husband of over a decade, Todd Tucker; the pair recently wrapped filming on a new indie that is currently in negotiations for distribution. (“I hope that one day we can be one of those huge production companies,” she wishes aloud.) Her acting goals are being fulfilled by her recurring roles on The Chi and Reasonable Doubt, and she’s even considering a return to Broadway…on stage.

Ultimately, Burruss envisions herself as one of those people receiving Lifetime Achievement awards in their old age. “It’s my dream to be one of the few people to have an EGOT,” she declares plainly at one point. “I say it to anyone who will listen, and I’ll keep speaking it until it comes true.” Is she looking to replicate the success of last year’s Wicked by producing a big-budget film adaptation of a popular stage show? Maybe. “But the way I look at it, I’m not just going to go at my goal one way. I could write music for movies. I can act.” With a hearty laugh, she adds, “Believe me. I’m over here looking at the list, like, Okay, so where do I qualify?”

But more than anything, Burruss is committed to proving people like that older white woman from the Thoughts talkback wrong by continuing to increase opportunities for Black people. “Overall, there’s definitely been more diversity in the way these shows are looking, and I think it’s making it easier for people to feel comfortable investing in shows that have people of color in them,” she responds when asked whether she’s seen any change in the industry since she started producing. (She’s careful to clarify that it isn’t because of her, specifically.) This, she insists, is what drives her to do what she does, to keep breaking down barriers in new industries. “Especially with women, especially with people of color, I’m always trying to see what I can do to help move the bar up a little bit, to push it to the next level.” She adds, “Until there is no conversation about being ‘the first [minority] to do’ something, we haven’t made it yet.”

“Everybody has their thing, right,” she later tells me, both of our entrée plates now clean. “Some people do things for the money. Some do it for family or whatever. But something that makes me tick is accomplishment.” She then takes a pause, considering her words. “I know that sounds crazy, but I’ve got dreams and goals. I want to be remembered later, and you’re not going to be remembered for just making money. You’re going to be remembered for making a difference.”

Stylist Daniel Hawkins | Hair Stylist Janel Sealy | Makeup Artist Latasha Wright