Power producer Tracey Edmonds is known for doing the culture a great service by providing quality entertainment in the form classic films and series, including “Soul Food” “College Hill,” and “Jumping the Broom.”
Now she’s gearing up for her new BET series, “Games People Play,” starring Lauren London, Sarunas Jackson, Parker McKenna Posey and Jackie Long.
“I used to tell people, I love working on shows that I would watch,” Edmonds tells MadameNoire. “I really feel like television viewers are hungry for the next really juicy, soapy, nighttime drama to watch, and that’s what we have here.”
According to the report, the show follows, “a high-profile couple going through some major dysfunction privately and publicly. We also meet the people around them who are associated with their drama, and very soon into the show, are witnesses to a murder investigation everyone gets caught up in,” writes the outlet.
“This story is all about the L.A. high-life and that all that glitters is not gold,” Edmonds said of the series, which premieres Tuesday night at 10/9c. “I’m an L.A. girl and I’ve been through enough in my own personal story. Definitely, all that glitters is not gold in LA and in these high-profile power-couple relationships where people have to smile when they’re in public and then go home and deal with challenges and struggles. And really, we’re exploring that with this show. We have three really dynamic characters and we’re seeing the world of this L.A. high-life through their eyes.”
A breakdown of those characters is as follows:
Lauren London portrays Vanessa King, the wife of basketball star Marcus King, played by Jackson. Karen Obilom plays Nia, a struggling, talented journalist stuck doing salacious stories. Parker McKenna Posey plays Laila, a floundering actress trying to get ahead by any means necessary, the report states.
“We’ve got really strong female characters, which is something that really appealed to me. And I think there’s going to be something about all three characters that audiences can relate to,” Edmonds added.
“My taste is pretty diverse and I kind of do projects of all genres, but the projects that I most connect with are the ones where I have a personal connection with the story,” she said. “So whether it be Soul Food, I came from a really close African-American family where my grandmother was the matriarch and we’d gather at her house for Thanksgivings and stuff, so that story I really connected to. In this story is a story as well that I really connect to. Being a professional woman in Los Angeles and having to navigate my personal life with my career and family trying to balance it all, there’s a lot in all of the characters that I connect with.”
Edmonds also had the chance to spend time with London and her longtime love Nipsey Hussle shortly before his untimely death last month.
“It was such an unexpected tragedy and the timing of everything was just crazy,” she said. “Literally, Thursday, a few days before, we saw him with Lauren. That was our last day of production, and he came to spend time with all of us on set. I just keep telling everyone, I was so blown away by the love the two of them had. It was beautiful for me to see a young couple like that, and to see Black love like that.”
“He was so proud of Lauren, so he was there with her on her last day of work,” she continued. “He was telling me how proud he was of her and how proud he was of her work on the show and he was so excited about the show and everything. They had their arms around each other and were just so proud of each other and were just such a solid, beautiful couple. To see the tragedy happen just a few days later, it just blew me away. Nipsey was a beautiful, amazing spirit and he was a beacon in the community. The legacy he leaves behind in terms of all the community enrichment he did and community empowerment, he’s going to be missed by so many people.”
Meanwhile, Edmonds says viewers of “Games People Play” will find the characters quite resonating.
“In our story, there are a lot of secrets going on, a lot of lies, a lot of things people aren’t revealing and telling,” Edmonds said. “There’s a lot of stuff you’re uncovering in each episode.”
