The musical film follows the life of Emily Franklin, a preacher’s daughter who gets caught up in a fast life that takes her away from the principles she was raised with as a child. It stars actress Robin Givens, singer A’ngela Winbush, Demetria McKinney from the sitcom “House of Payne”, Grammy winner Karen Clark Sheard, songstress Wanda Nero-Butler and Tony Grant from the R&B group, Az Yet.
Douglas has been a leader in the Gospel Music industry for more than 15 years and is known as the new artist breaker. Through his grass-roots marketing techniques, he has broken some of today’s top Gospel artists like James Fortune, Earnest Pugh, Keith “Wonderboy” Johnson, Jimmy Hicks and Evelyn Turrentine-Agee.
As a pioneer of Urban Theatre, Angela Barrow Dunlap has been writing and producing hit gospel stage plays for over 25 years. “We literally had to invent this genre,” Dunlap reminisces. “There was no training or classes for this type of theatre. We had to invent and learn all at the same time.” Over the years, she’s co-created hit plays such as “Why Do Good Girls Like Bad Boyz”, “If These Hips Could Talk” and “Real Men Pray”. Her latest, “Church Girl,” toured the USA in 2011.
Recently, Douglas introduced The New Deal Entertainment University as a platform to teach the urban world his unique brand of multi-media marketing that has helped him place James Fortune and Earnest Pugh at the top of the Billboard gospel charts. “I want to teach industry professionals not just by passing on text-book and/or online courses, but I want to also practice what I preach by walking-the-walk,” Douglas states. “It’s not just enough to promote records, but you have to cross promote in television and film. Teaming up with Angela Dunlap to bring `Church Girl’ to DVD and Home Theater is the perfect launch for Blacksmoke Films.”