Entertainment

Three’s Complicated and Fun on Film

THE AFRO — The project stars Shanola Hampton (of Showtime’s “Shameless”), who also served as an executive producer on the film.

Published

7 years ago

January 28, 2019

Oakland Post

By George Kevin Jordan

What would you do? You are 42, divorced and passed over for a promotion. You meet a cute young thing at a bar and have some fun—for once. You have a no-strings-attached session and keep it pushing back to your “real life.” But then you discover your daughter (read: your real life) is dating your weekend-stand. Throw in an ex or two and it gets…well…complicated.

That the premise behind “Three’s Complicated,” a film that debuts Jan. 13 at 7 p.m. EST/ 6 p.m. Central on TV One.

The project stars Shanola Hampton (of Showtime’s “Shameless”), who also served as an executive producer on the film. The film was written and directed by Shari Lynette Carpenter. Rounding out the cast are Tyler Lepley (“The Haves and The Have Nots”), Kyanna Simone Simpson (“The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks”) and Charles Malik Whitfield (“The Temptations”).

Hampton was excited to bring the project to life, and to have a bigger hand in the process.

“It’s really a great concept,” Hampton said about the film, adding that the project gave her a chance to fulfill many goals she envisioned for herself in the upcoming year.

“It was one of my visions last year for my life,” Hampton said. “I wanted to find a film I was excited about, I wanted to work with a great team. It was a great partnership with TV One. It was so much fun. It really was what I call the perfect marriage for my first time as executive producer.”

Hampton was very candid about taking the helm, saying, “There are all sorts of decisions that need to be made that people have no idea about.”

She added with a laugh, “But I like being a boss. I’m a boss in my own house – ask my husband. I executive produce my life. It was an easy transition to do it on set.”

All jokes aside Hampton and the crew are excited to be on the uptick of entertainment gigs for people of color, but are not afraid to call out the hypocrisy of Hollywood.

“We have had more opportunities than we’ve ever had which is a good thing but we still have a long way to go,” Hampton said.

Tyler Lepley said he was excited as well but knows talent is talent regardless of the beholder.

“You have someone like Viola Davis,” Avery said. “She was great before anyone White said she was great. This whole thing of a Black artist not being great unless a White person says so is just stupid. That Black artistry is great before anyone else says it is.”

Even though it’s a comedy, “Three’s Complicated” is doing some low-key activism, pushing to the forefront ideas of sexuality, romance, identity and, of course, aging.

“This is definitely one reason I was drawn to the role,” Hampton said. “The fact of the matter that 42 is not old by any means but in certain industries it’s perceived that way. It is a story that needs to be told; I really wanted to show beauty, talent, heart, even in your forties.”

Last week, Regina King, after winning a Golden Globe for her role in “If Beale Street Could Talk,” made a promise that 50 percent of any crew she worked on would be women. This call to action resonates with Hampton and her team.

“Look at our film: A woman wrote it, a women directed,” she said, adding, “A woman is going to bring something different than a male. There’s a different love that goes to it. So it needs to be done more.”

Once a project is completed your idea of what you wanted may have shifted. But Hampton an Lepley were very focused on their goals for the film.

“I want to bring a grounded sense of reality to this romantic comedy and not have it be slapstick,” Lepley said; “to bring the truth to something that is funny.”

Hampton concurred, “I really want people to feel the subtlety of this being a romantic comedy but making sure it was rooted in truth. I wanted people to feel the reality of it.”

For more information on the film please go to the TV One site.

This article originally appeared in The Afro.

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Arts and Culture

IN MEMORIAM: Oakland Dance Legend Reginald Ray-Savage, 67

Savage lived his life as tribute to the teachers who had shared their wisdom on art and life with him. With a palpably genuine enthusiasm and desire to bring out the best in people, and pass the torch to the next generation, he poured into his students, as his teachers and mentors had into him. His infectious energy, love of life, and generosity of spirit inspired countless souls, both inside and outside the dance studio.

Published

6 days ago

June 24, 2026

Oakland Post

Reginald Ray-Savage brought the old-school teaching techniques he learned in the Katherine Dunham Dance Company to the youth at the Oakland School for the Arts in 2003. Courtesy photo.

Special to The Post

Reginald Ray-Savage – dancer, choreographer, and beloved teacher, mentor, and inspiration to many – passed away on May 17. The Oakland School for the Arts dance instructor was 67.

Born Reginald Ray, Jr. in St. Louis, Missouri, on Sept. 5, 1958, he formally adopted the name ‘Savage,’ to honor the great Archie Savage, his mentor at Katherine Dunham’s Performing Arts Training Center where his dance training journey began in East St. Louis, Illinois.

He soon started dancing professionally with Katherine Dunham Dance Company, making dance a way of life. His grit, tenacity, and notorious work ethic brought him scholarships to train at multiple prestigious dance institutions, including The Ailey School (NYC) and Ruth Page School of Dance (Chicago), under the direction of acclaimed ballet instructor Larry Long and Dolores Lipinski-Long.

He danced with several companies including Joel Hall Dance Company, Ruth Page Ballet Chicago, Lyric Opera, Chicago City Ballet, American Festival Ballet, and touring productions of “Music Man” and “A Chorus Line”.

In 1989, Savage moved to Oakland where he started teaching seven days a week, amassing a devoted following that was attracted to his no-nonsense, impassioned, and effective old-school teaching style.

In 1992, at the insistence of his committed core of students, he founded Savage Jazz Dance Company (SJDC). Over a span of 30 years, Savage produced more than 100 original works, and tour SJDC nationally and internationally, performing at Casa del Jazz in Rome to a packed house and rave reviews—the first dance company to receive such an invitation.

Savage built SJDC into one of the Bay Area’s most respected dance companies, creating a signature style known for its combination of disciplined training, blended with rich artistic musical expression, and raw energy.

In 2003, Savage joined the Oakland School for the Arts as chair of the School of Dance. Over the next two decades, he created, built, and maintained a strong dance program, recognized, and respected by other dance institutions for forging well-trained and resilient dancers and human beings.

The depth of Savage’s tough love and care, and the skill of his teaching and mentoring are reflected in the careers of his students who have gone on to dance with the San Francisco Ballet, Martha Graham Dance Company, Mark Morris Dance Group, Janet Jackson, Ariana Grande, and companies across the globe.

Mark Kitaoka, a photographer hired by Savage in 2016, posted a living eulogy on the dance instructor.

“When I see the self-pride he builds in his students I am constantly impressed that people like Savage still exist in our ‘meme’ society,” Kitaoka wrote. “The kids he mentors are fiercely loyal to one another and I’m certain his methods teach each of those kids to put aside social status, race and gender and is replaced by solid loyalty for other souls.

“What Savage contributes to our world cannot be completely summed up in a few meager paragraphs but can be seen in the countless lives of those he has touched. Because of him, our world, and the world of the future is both a richer and better place.

Reginald Ray-Savage will forever be missed, remembered, and lovingly quoted. He is survived by his beloved wife, Alison Hurley, his sister, Sonia, and his brothers, Pierre, and Andre. May his inextinguishable spirit and impact live on in all the lives he touched.

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Oakland Post: Week of June 17 – 23, 2026

The printed Weekly Edition of the Oakland Post: Week of June 17 – 23, 2026

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June 20, 2026

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Books

Book Review: Something We Said: Richard Pryor, A Notorious Word, and Me

Though sticks and stones and words are weapons, as in the new memoir, “Something We Said” by Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor, they can also hold people together.

Published

2 weeks ago

June 17, 2026

bpusa-syndication

By Terri Schlichenmeyer

Author: Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor, Copyright: c.2026, Publisher: Simon & Schuster, SRP: $29.00, Page Count: 304 pages

Sticks and stones may break my bones.

You know the rest of that childhood rhyme, and you know it’s not true: words have meaning, and they can cut like a knife. And yet, though sticks and stones and words are weapons, as in the new memoir, “Something We Said” by Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor, they can also hold people together.

The college lecture was supposed to have been about the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act.

It was supposed to be a lively discussion, but unintentionally it quickly veered off course. When a White student quoted a movie line featuring the “n-word,” the room went quiet, and Professor Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor panicked.

She’d grown up hearing that word, and seeing it, and she’d experienced the painful feelings attached to it. She knew who wrote that movie line. It was her father, Richard Pryor.

In her first few years, Pryor spent most of her time in a White world, hearing her mother’s tales of her larger-than-life father, and trying to grasp meaning in her father’s albums, peppered as they were with a word that was off-limits to her.

When she was six, she met her father for the first time. She began to visit him regularly.

It was fun at her Dad’s house; though he was sometimes moody, he taught her to fish and play dominoes. She became close with her siblings, fearful of her great-grandmother, and confused about a word that her father’s uncles threw around like a beach ball. It was a forbidden word at her mother’s house, but her father used it. Differently. Often.

The word hurt. She knew first-hand that it did.

“The word became a degrading slur that shackled all Black people together into a single, inescapable tribe,” she says.

So why was it okay for certain people to say it?

Knowing that, in the years since Richard Pryor’s accident and his death from multiple sclerosis, he’s become somewhat of a legend. It is a very satisfying thing, isn’t it? So is reading about him, especially from the viewpoint of one of his seven children. But his is not the only story you get inside “Something We Said.”

Wrapped around the life of Richard Pryor is the life of a word that straddles a line between danger and provocation, a word that author Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor refuses to say or even print. As she tells readers about her father and her loving-but-difficult relationship with him, she warily circles that word, as if it might bite. You may cringe, but she weighs it carefully, helping readers see it as a chameleon before always bringing us back to her father, his work, and his life before and after her and that word.

It’s a push-pull balance that holds readers fast, and keeps them there. It’s perfect for fans of this genre, or Richard Pryor, or of language – and it’s going to make you think. If you want a good memoir this week, one that may send you to your old album collection, “Something We Said” is rock-solid.