Dusan Brown has landed a lead role in Netflix’s “Black Bottom,” which also stars Viola Davis, Glynn Turman and Chadwick Boseman.
George C. Wolfe will direct while Todd Black, Dany Wolf and Denzel Washington will produce. Constanza Romero is executive producing. Academy Award winner Ann Roth is the costume designer and Branford Marsalis has been signed as the composer.
The story centers on Ma Rainey, the pioneering “Queen of the Blues,” while she was making a record in a studio in Chicago in 1927 with tensions boiling between her, her white agent and producer and her bandmates. The play on which the film is based won the 1985 New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for best American play.
Ruben Santiago is adapting the play.
Brown appeared in the 2013 film “42” opposite Chadwick Boseman, and has guest starred on shows including “iZombie,” “Community” and “The Big Bang Theory.” On the theater side, Brown also played the lead role of Young Simba in Disney’s “The Lion King” on Broadway for its North American tour. His short, “Reece,” which he wrote and directed, was recently selected for the Los Angeles International Shorts Festival.
He’s represented by Coast to Coast, Strategic PR and Myman Greenspan Fox Rosenberg Mobasser Younger and Light.