We’ve come to scoff at the Chitlin Circuit as jigaboo entertainment, when in reality it should be glorified as the most culturally curated art tour the world has ever seen. Nearly all of the Black entertainers between the 30’s and 70’s performed in Black owned theaters, or those that were erected in “colored” communities. Through this phenomenon the word spread about Black entertainers like Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, Josephine Baker, James Brown, Little Richard, Tina Turner and Jimi Hendrix and the non-Black world was forced to flock to “colored communities where they would discover that Black people are indigenous to inventing the improvisational arts. Screenwriting, when done ethnically, is an improvisational art that Negritube believes should go back to the essence of tribal storytelling with call and response and witty bantor.
Written Chitlins is the Chitlin Circuit for underrepresented screenwriters because the screenplays written by writers represented by Negritube go on a book club tour led by mostly middle-aged Black women. It works like this: A book club is formed with 10 people who read a screenplay that Negritube publishes as a book. As the book club read begins the readers invite their friends to watch in on Instagram live. As their friends watch they are encouraged to buy an electronic copy of the book that they can instantly access through the website. When the electronic copies are bought the writer instantly gets a percentage as do the book club readers. The Movie Book Club distributes more published copies of the writers work to the book club readers and when the book gets chosen by, the most entertaining book club, they are filmed reading the book on the stream channel Written Chitlins, while they eat vegan chitlins. The chitlin circuit got it’s name because on the route chitlins were eaten.”
Written Chitlins is an opportunity for screenwriters to get their work battletested and endorsed by the most raucous audience of critics in the world, middle aged Black women. Just as the Apollo Theater was the battle grounds for bourgeoning artists to become breakthrough artists, Written Chitlins is that same opportunity for underrepresented writers. When your work is read aloud by Black people in a semi-party setting for the world to see, you will break out as a star author if their reactions are exhilarated ones. More copies of your book will be sold and you will become a household name.
