Flipping The Script

After major success with Girls Trip, Tracy Oliver is using her platform to tell classic stories in fresh (and hilarious) ways

- Jazmine Hughes

We’re in an unassuming Brooklyn corner bar that’s been transformed into drag-queen central. The mood is tense. Cast members of the upcoming First Wives Club reboot, a TV series based on the 1996 film and premiering on BET this summer, are struggling to rehearse a dance scene; the song meant for the final cut is still being recorded, so they’re grooving in silence. A castmate breaks up the awkwardness, suggesting, “We can practice with ‘Back That Azz Up!’”

The actors laugh, then film the scene again, this time with Juvenile as background. The assembled crew members start bopping along to the song—the show’s creator, showrunner, and executive producer, Tracy Oliver, included. Everyone starts getting hype, shimmying a little harder, calling out a supportive “Ay.” Oliver, though, stays focused. For this episode, she’s in the director’s chair, studying the actors’ every move, gesturing at the choreographer at the end of the take, reviewing her notes.

The scene feels like an instant party, and Oliver, 32, is ultimately the one throwing it. She’s the brains behind the production—the pilot she wrote got the reboot greenlit—and the project is her buzziest since she made history in 2017 as the first black female screenwriter of a film that grossed over $100 million. (Oliver cowrote Girls Trip, the sisterhood comedy starring Tiffany Haddish, Regina Hall, Queen Latifah, and Jada Pinkett Smith, which made $140 million at the box office.)