Angela G. King

Inspired by an elementary school teacher, Angela G. King knew early on that she would make storytelling her life. Taking a journalism class as a senior in high school led the Michigan native to first cultivate this passion through a news career. After earning a journalism degree from Howard University, she went on to spend nearly 20 years working for the New York Daily News, Detroit News, USA Today, U.S. News & World Report, Dow Jones News Service, Crain's Detroit Business, Fairchild Publications and other top media outlets. Heeding a growing conviction to take her storytelling to another level, King left her award-winning career in full-time journalism in 2001 to study film production at Montclair State University and, later, the Motion Picture Institute of Michigan. After graduating from MPI with honors, she premiered her thesis short film, "On The Other Side," in 2005 to benefit the Coalition On Temporary Shelter, South Oakland Shelter and Gleaners Community Food Bank of Southeast Michigan. Like "Who Knows?," the student film that she helped to produce at Montclair State, King tapped a penchant for crafting black-and-white cinema, sans the benefit of dialogue, and personal insight to write, direct and produce "On The Other Side" as a narrative look at a day in the life of a homeless woman. The movie's Michigan premiere at the Birmingham 8 Theatre was not only highlighted by newspapers and radio stations throughout Metro Detroit. "On The Other Side" was later shown by the likes of Women In Film at the Hollywood Entertainment Museum in Los Angeles; The Mitten Movie Project at the Main Art Theatre in Royal Oak, MI; the Trinity Film Coalition in Detroit; the Kingdomwood Christian Film Festival in suburban Atlanta; and the 2006 Christian Film/Television Market International at the Los Angeles Convention Center. "On The Other Side" was dubbed Best Inspirational Film at the Jokara Family Film/Video Festival in Georgia in 2006, and nominated for an Agape Gospel Theater & Film Award at the Apollo Theater in New York City the following year. While still at MPI, King was encouraged to also pursue acting, and landed her first paying acting gig from the mostly unlikely of venues - as a "standardized patient" helping to teach communication skills to students at the Wayne State University School of Medicine. In time, King began to study acting through the School of the Arts at Kensington Church in Troy, MI, and workshops at the Detroit Repertory Theatre. King was cast in her first screen role as Neicy, the widowed mother of high school senior Bilal Mahdi and his younger sister, Mila, in the 2006 independent feature film, "Bilal's Stand." Produced as part of a community-based youth program launched by University of Michigan film-school graduate, Sultan Sharrief, "Bilal's Stand" was an official selection in the 2010 Sundance Film Festival's NEXT category. King went on to showcase her foray into acting with a stage debut at the Paul Robeson Theater in Detroit's Northwest Activities Center, under the direction of Repertory Theater of Hope artistic director, Robert L. Douglas, in a dramatic musical written by Douglas. From this stint in community theater King moved on to work at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History. It was at this seminal Detroit institution where she conducted daily tours for nearly three years portraying various historical figures, and appeared in special performances as well at both the museum and the likes of the Michigan State Fair and W.K. Kellogg Foundation. A career breakthrough came for King when she was given the opportunity to reprise a role that she had performed at The Wright Museum later at the Detroit Repertory Theater. Playing Hurricane Katrina survivor Mona Lisa Martin once again, King became part of an all-female cast whose rendition of venerated author and playwright Pearl Cleage's "A Song for Coretta" was voted "Best Play of the Season" by the subscribers to Michigan's oldest professional theater. King went on to also appear at the Detroit Rep in the late Romulus Linney's stage adaptation of the Ernest J. Gaines novel, "A Lesson Before Dying;" as well as the morality mystery murder, "Taking Care of Mimi;" and the comedic spin on elder care in a post-Medicare existence, "A Facility for Living." King later made her debut at Michigan's largest professional theater, Meadow Brook, in "Luce," the thought-provoking story of a star high school student gone awry. More recently, she portrayed black South African psychologist, Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, in "A Human Being Died That Night," the wrenching post-apartheid account based on Gobodo-Madikizela's book of the same name, with the Outvisible Theatre Company to critical acclaim. A member of the Actors' Equity Association, the labor union for professional stage managers and actors, she is a stalwart in the Detroit-area theater community who also serves on the board of directors for Meadow Brook, and as an adviser to the Detroit Rep board of trustees. On screen, King has appeared in commercials, public service announcements and industrial videos for the likes of General Motors Corp., Beaumont Health System, the University of Michigan, and the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. She includes roles in such independent films as "American Prophet" and "The Messenger's Box" among her screen credits as well.