By Michaela Gordoni
DeVon Franklin opened up deeply in his new stage show, “Be True: My Journey from Breakdown to Breakthrough.”
“I think sometimes we want to be in the public and we want the persona of who we are to do the talking and not the person,” Franklin said. “So, this performance is the person, DeVon, the person. It’s not the persona.”
Franklin says the show is completely, 100%, him.
“It’s very cathartic, but it’s also very transparent,” he said. “It’s very vulnerable at times, and it’s definitely the most terrifying thing I’ve ever done. And I’m just praying that it goes well.”
The MIRACLES FROM HEAVEN producer hopes the show inspires others and says, in his experience, his life’s breakthroughs happened after there were breakdowns.
“I would say they would be an emotional roller coaster from the depths of the darkness to the heights of the light. A lot of times, we pray for a breakthrough. However, in my experience, most breakthroughs are directly connected to a breakdown,” he said.
“So, you know me as a moviemaker, and so as I wrote this script for this one-man show, I take the chapters are part of the scenes of my movie, the movie of my life. And it’s a roller coaster,” he said. “I mean the ups and the downs and highs and lows.”
Franklin hopes people see themselves in his story.
He had a public divorce that was heartbreaking, which he talks about in the show.
“There’s so many people that go through heartbreak, and they suffer in silence. And so, if something that I can say or articulate on that stage might help somebody, then I’m here for it,” he told CBN. “…That’s what God’s called me to do is go back into some of these wounds and tap into some of that hurt that I felt as a way to help somebody.”
“A lot of times, I’m uplifting the human spirit through a movie, a television series, preaching, and all of those things are great,” he said. “However, the difference with this one is that it’s me, the truth of me and my life and my experience, which I have never shared it in this way.”
Franklin’s performance took place at Audible’s Minetta Lane Theatre in New York on July 18 and 19.
Franklin is also celebrating his latest series, DIVORCED SISTAS, which came out on BET+ on June 9. Franklin stars in the show as Pastor Jefferson.
“I play a character who is really trying to live in the light but is dealing with his own internal darkness,” he said of the role. “It’s not me…[but] I have a reservoir of emotion and pain to draw from, which helps me render this character, I think, more authentically.”
Franklin’s next project, RUTH & BOAZ, which he produces with Tyler Perry, will premiere on Netflix on Sept. 26.
Read Next: 4 Things We Love About Producer DeVon Franklin
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