The man who gave the world Songs In The Key Of Life has decided to dive into the exciting and thankless world of television miniseries production. Deadline reports that Stevie Wonder is producing Freedom Run, an eight-hour miniseries about real people involved in the Underground Railroad, for NBC. The project is an adaptation of Betty DeRamus’ book Forbidden Fruit: Love Stories From The Underground Railroad, telling the stories of three couples struggling against slavery and oppression. This will be Wonder’s first time producing television outside of the occasional musical special or live benefit concert.
In addition, Wonder will be writing the original score for a Broadway musical based on the same source material. Both endeavors will be scripted by a writing team made up of B. Swibel, Adam Westbrook, and Charles Randolph-Wright. This marks the second project involving the Underground Railroad announced in recent months, the other being the already-reported Underground from WGN. And although Stevie Wonder’s track record is pretty stellar, let’s hope this new score is a little more consistent than, say, Stevie Wonder’s Journey Through “The Secret Life Of Plants.”