Jackie Richardson as Momma-Lou in The Gospel According to the Blues.
Halifax-based filmmaker Thom Fitzgerald has long had an affinity for Canada's gospel music scene - a love affair that started more than 20 years ago when the 41-year-old worked backstage on the production of local playwright George Boyd's drama Gideon's Blues.
Boyd had recruited the renowned Canadian gospel singer and actress Jackie Richardson to play the matriarch, Momma-Lou, who is forced to make tough personal choices after drugs and violence rob her community of its soul.
Twenty years later, Fitzgerald, who has made such acclaimed films as The Hanging Garden and 3 Needles, premieres his one-hour television drama The Gospel According to the Blues, based on that play, tonight on VisionTV. And, once again, Richardson returns in the starring role.
Fitzgerald explains why he felt duty-bound to bring this searing story to the small screen. And why Richardson, who hails from Richmond Hill, Ont., is the only person who should play Momma-Lou.
Why did you become fixated on getting Gideon's Blues to a television audience?
I worked on George's production here in Halifax in 1991. And I was very moved by the piece. It's very rare, and exciting, to find a profound script that is set in your very own neighbourhood. This has been a long journey but I think it's a very strong piece, with a strong point of view. This enables me to raise that point to view to a wider audience. And I'm so thrilled to have Jackie back. She lives in Toronto but she's very connected to Nova Scotia.
I understand you live in Halifax's North End, which two decades ago was a pretty seedy part of town, overrun by drugs and violence. Why did you choose to live there?
I moved here as a poor student [from his native New York]to attend the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, and I never left. It's a neighbourhood that has changed dramatically in the last 20 years. It's become somewhat gentrified in the last 10 - and I'm not sure that I particularly like the new North End better than the old one.
What makes Richardson's voice so powerful?
There is a depth of experience and understanding in her voice. I just can't explain it any other way. And I'm not sure I would have tried to do the movie without Jackie. Her performance has always been the heart and soul of the play.
Is Boyd's play based on a true story?
It's inspired by some violent events that happened in Halifax in the late eighties. It's certainly not any one person's true story.
What are you up to next?
I recently wrote a play called Cloudburst, which made its premiere at the city's new Plutonium Playhouse [which Fitzgerald established]in April. Now I'm going on to do Cloudburst, the movie.
This is becoming a pattern for you.
You're right. I hadn't identified that, but it's true. But Cloudburst is totally different from The Gospel. It's a geriatric, lesbian, romantic road comedy, starring Olympia Dukakis and Brenda Fricker. It will shoot in Nova Scotia starting this summer. I can't wait.
The Gospel According to the Blues airs Tuesday at 9 p.m. ET on VisionTV.