Shannan E. Johnson and The Professional Pen have set the cast for WOS Live: Who Killed Calvin?, an immersive live staged reading built around Johnson’s feature screenplay The Weight of Silence, set to take place September 20 in Los Angeles.
The ensemble includes Birgundi Baker, Omar J. Dorsey, Zachariah Rogers, Jon Chaffin, Deborah Joy Winans, Rolando Boyce Sr., Geffri Maya, Jessica Frances Dukes, Cairo Spencer, LeShay T. Boyce, Amad Jackson, Jeff Prater, Reno Warmath, Jeremie Rivers, Shari “Ri” Bihms, Maria Pallas, Misty Anderson, Paul Archer and Michael Monks.
The Weight of Silence is a Southern crime drama set in the rarely depicted world of Black cowboys in Houston. The story follows a guarded butcher who returns home to bury her estranged father, a revered Black cowboy murdered in a string of serial decapitations, only to be pulled into an investigation that reopens a toxic love triangle and unearths a family secret she has spent her life running from.
Johnson developed the project as an entry point into Houston’s Black rodeo culture, a world she was introduced to by her late father, Sidney “Sid the Cowboy” Johnson. Rather than pursue a traditional pitch route, Johnson is using the live staged reading format to introduce The Weight of Silence directly to industry executives and audiences.
WOS Live: Who Killed Calvin? is presented by The Professional Pen and hosted by LATex Media, with Jason Dirden directing and Artis J. Olds serving as creative director.
The live experience takes place September 20 in Los Angeles.