TINA ANDREWS is an international award-winning writer, producer, and director, as well as an author, playwright, and multi-media visual artist.  Andrews is considered as one of Hollywood's busiest script doctors as well as a “Historical Dramatist.” Her nonfiction book, Sally Hemings An American Scandal: The Struggle to Tell The Controversial True Story (The Malibu Press), won the NAACP Image Award for "Outstanding Achievement in Literary Nonfiction" and the Literary Award of Excellence from the Memphis Writers Conference. The book was based on her award-winning four-hour CBS miniseries, Sally Hemings: An American Scandal, which she wrote and executive produced. It was the highest rated, most watched miniseries of its season garnering Andrews the Writers Guild of America Award for "Outstanding Longform Television,"—the first African American to win that category in WGA history—and the NAACP Image Award for "Outstanding TV Movie, Miniseries or Special." CBS bought the miniseries based on Andrews’ play The Mistress of Monticello, which Andrews originally wrote and directed at the Chicago Dramatists Workshop. Andrews’ work in film and television has led to other accolades, including a Proclamation from the City Council of New York City.

 

Andrews wrote and executive produced the CBS miniseries, Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis, and wrote the Warner Bros. film, Why Do Fools Fall in Love starring Oscar-winning actress, Halle Berry. She also wrote, produced and directed the popular Showtime animation series, Sistas 'n the City; and has an essay in the book, The First Time I Got Paid for It: Writers Tales From The Hollywood Trenches (Public Affairs). Tina has published work in the Los Angeles Times, The WGA's Written By and Creative Screenwriting magazines, among others.

 

After attending NYU where she majored in its famed theater program, Tina performed as an actress in over 100 film and television roles including Conrack, starring Oscar-winning actor, Jon Voight, Carny starring multiple Oscar winner, Jodie Foster, and originated the seminal role of "Valerie Grant" on NBC’s Days of Our Lives in daytime television's first interracial—and at that time extremely controversial—"open" romance between characters. But it was the role of "Aurelia"—the love interest of LeVar Burton's "Kunta Kinte"—in the award-winning historic miniseries, Roots, which led to an incredible relationship with her literary mentor, legendary author Alex Haley. Together they collaborated on the PBS miniseries, Alex Haley's Great Men of African Descent. It led to Tina's first script sale to Columbia Pictures.

 

Tina has been a guest on Oprah, CBS This Morning, Frontline (PBS) and more.  She has lectured on writing at NYU, University of Southern California, UCLA, Indiana University and the University of North Carolina. She serves on the board of directors of the famed Southampton Cultural Center in New York; and the advisory board of Highways Performance Space in the acclaimed 18th St. Arts Complex in Santa Monica, CA.

 

Tina has directed the Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Clybourne Park by Bruce Norris; and Venus in Fur by David Ives at the renowned Guild Hall Theater in East Hampton. Her play, The Mistress of Monticello—which she also directed, based on her award-winning CBS miniseries—also had a successful run at the Southampton Cultural Center. Additionally, Tina directed her one-woman show: Coretta: Promise to The Dream, in which she starred as Coretta Scott King also at the Southampton Cultural Center, where she is a Playwright-in-Residence.

 

Currently, Andrews is the screenwriter and an executive producer of Viola & Sarah—an upcoming feature film for Entertainment Studios, which will chronicle the life of Viola Liuzzo, the white Civil Rights activist murdered by the Ku Klux Klan during the Selma to Montgomery march in 1965.

 

She has adapted her 2018 novel: Princess Sarah, Queen Victoria's African Goddaughter (The Malibu Press) into a film. The novel examines the not widely-known true story of Sarah Forbes Bonetta, an African princess who was rescued from beheading in Dahomey by a British naval officer, brought to London and became goddaughter to Queen Victoria on whom she had an enormous influence. Tina will also direct the film, which is slated to be shot in London and Belgium. Tina, and her production company TAO Entertainment Group, will produce.

 

Andrews is also the writer/executive producer of a new six-hour CBS miniseries: MLK: An American Conspiracy being produced by TAO Entertainment Group, in association with Oscar-nominated producer, Todd Black and his Escape Artists production company (Roman J. Israel, Fences). Her latest venture is her  adaptation of her historical fiction novel, Charlotte Sophia: Myth, Madness, and the Moor, into the series Buckingham for HBO Max International. The series will chronicle the life of Britain's Queen Charlotte Sophia who was of African descent. Andrews first adapted her novel into the play, Buckingham and directed it to sold-out audiences at Santa Monica's acclaimed Highways Performance Space; and in New York at the Southampton Cultural Center. The East Hampton Press called the play "...beautiful and brilliant writing..."; "...told magnificently and with much wit," and The Southampton Press said it was "...destined for the Broadway stage..." The play is being prepped for an eventual regional run to be followed by a commercial run in Manhattan, which Tina will direct.

 

Tina Andrews has been named one of 50 To Watch by Variety, and she divides her time between New York, Los Angeles and London.