An R&B Singer’s Next Act: A One-Woman Show
As a singer, R&B artist Netta Brielle has told her story through music for over a decade. With lyrics inspired by lived experiences, she’s cloaked it all in clever poetry, soothing harmonies and electric vocal runs.
Now, she’s bringing her life story to the theater with a new one-woman show, One Shot. With intimate aspects of her career and personal life, she says, the stage play contains details that even people who’ve known her for years aren’t going to believe.
“You really rapped for Tupac?” I blurt out during a recent phone call. “Yes!” she responds, “Crazy, right?”
Netta was just a 6th grader when her sister took her to a studio in East Oakland to kick some rhymes for the late thug poet. “I never talk about it,” Netta concedes, “because I don’t have the picture. It almost feels like it never happened.”
Tired of belittling the biggest moments of her life, she’s now sharing the tales that she’s glossed over or tucked away. “I’m trying to embrace that in this story,” she says of the show. A multitalented artist who’s seen highs and lows, Netta is the amalgamation of these anecdotes. “It is a big part of who I am, and why I see things the way I do,” she tells me.
Netta will perform the “musical memoir” in front of a small studio audience on Saturday, Nov. 7. She’ll also film it, and release it later this year.
The production charts Netta’s path as a lifelong entertainer. As a kid, she performed at Oakland’s Fruitvale Playhouse, Berkeley’s Black Repertory Group Theater and San Francisco’s ACT. She later studied art at San Jose State, where she earned her degree after taking a break to pursue music. During that hiatus, she was singed to Atlantic Records, where she worked directly with music mogul Andre Harrell and made songs with stars like T.I.
That all seems like a lifetime ago to Netta now. She’s currently in her final semester of a graduate program at Cal State Los Angeles, where she’s focused on the theater arts and retracing her love of storytelling in all its forms.
“I used to be into Shakespeare really deeply,” Netta reflects. But “every time I tried to go back to it, it always felt like the Bible. I wanted to understand, but a lot of the language was a little confusing for me.”
Lately she’s had to revisit Shakespeare, specifically The Winter’s Tale. “It was one of the pieces that I performed in one of my classes,” says Netta, “and it went over really well.”
The story of a queen who needs to convince her romantic partner that she’s worthy of love resonated with Netta’s own experiences.
“I’m always having to plead and show why I’m deserving, why I am committed and loyal,” she laments, noting that this time around, Shakespeare’s language spoke to her. Netta even references Queen Hermione’s monologue in her own play. “I figured I would add that in,” Netta says, of her writing process, “just to show that I do this for real.“
Over the course of Netta’s monologue, there’s humorous observations alongside the trauma of losing multiple family members and seeing loved ones subjected to domestic violence. “There’s a lot of people from the Bay Area,” says Netta, “who have shared a lot of similarities with my story.”
The title of the play, One Shot, is born from the misleading idea that artists, and humans in general, only have one shot to achieve their dream.
But “everybody’s journey doesn’t look the same,” Netta attests. “Just because this works for me this way, doesn’t mean that it could for someone else, or vice versa.” What’s actually important in life, she says, is “taking a chance at something that terrifies you. And if it doesn’t work, it’s okay.”
Unlearning that notion, of there being one and one chance only to reach a goal, has been an exercise in real time for the entertainer. “But the truth of the matter is,” she says, “there’s so many opportunities and shots you can take.” Pivoting is necessary for success, she says — it’s just not often talked about broadly. “And I think that we need to see more of those stories.”
At the end of the play, Netta is joined on stage by a young actress, Crystal Corcuchia, who plays a young version of the R&B singer and playwright. On stage, the child asks Netta questions about success. “Are we famous?” the girl asks.
“Sometimes,” Netta responds. “We learned to stop waiting for the applause … We are everything we want to be, just not exactly how you imagined it.”
Netta Brielle’s ‘One Shot’ performance will be filmed in front of a small audience on Saturday, Nov. 7. More information here.