Ghanaian Actor, Director, Satirist, talk show Host, and Author Kwaku Sintim-Misa, popularly known as ‘KSM’ has shared the biggest setback in his life and has hoped that others will learn from his experience.
In an interview on the Y Leaderboard Series with Rev.Erskine, he related that after so many sacrifices, perseverance and breakthroughs, one of his shows, ‘The Thoughts of a Confused Black Man’, made it off-Broadway in America.
Per his narration, he performed the show one time to only two people who made it to the show despite the unfavourable weather that day. And after a great performance, one of them who was well-known in the theatrical world promised to move his show to off-Broadway. His show was successfully moved to off-Broadway
However, in a rush to make it to Broadway, he signed an agreement that he so regrets to this day. He told Rev.Erskine, “I messed up again. I messed up big time. Some guy came to see the show off-Broadway and thought it was fantastic and promised me he was going to take it to Broadway. And the biggest mistake I had made in my life after that point and even still was that I agreed and signed the contract with him because I wanted to get to Broadway. It didn’t happen. All he wanted to do was to just take the rights of the play from me”.
KSM passionately advised,” Let me advise people to never sign a contract until you have a lawyer review it for you to understand what you are signing. This is because what he explained to me and the contract I signed were two different things. But I didn’t care because the offer sounded terrific, so I didn’t know I had signed away my life; my rights to the play. He had the right to decide what happens to the play”.
While he revealed that the turnout of events did not favour his partner, he insisted that he made a wrong move that he will never advise anyone to emulate.
“Apparently he had lined up some actors for the role. He was going to audition a whole new set of actors and put them on stage. God being so good or the world being so mysterious nobody who auditioned could not deliver in the role that I played. I heard he auditioned over seventy-five (75) people and he wasn’t happy with any of them. But then again, I had lost the right to the play because I had signed it anyway”.
For KSM, it was such a harrowing experience that he had to move back to Ghana in a state of confusion.
“This was the biggest blow ever. I was sad and confused because my whole life was ‘The Thoughts of a Confused Black Man’ Can you imagine signing it off and you cannot even perform on the play? My own work; I was crushed!”.
By: Alberta Dorcas N D Armah
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