How ‘The Upshaws’ co-creator Regina Hicks went from assistant to Netflix showrunner
It was 1982, and Savannah native Regina Hicks was enrolled in a screenwriting course at the University of Georgia.
Her professor assigned the class to create a radio play, pilot episode or film script. She chose to write 30 pages of a movie.
After going over the script, Hicks’ professor suggested that she consider a career as a screenwriter. The encouragement made Hicks confident in turning character development, humor and family into multicamera television shows.
“I was a little Black girl from Savannah watching ‘The Andy Griffith Show,’ ‘I Love Lucy,’ ‘Three’s Company,’ and talking about Hollywood all the time. Nobody really took me seriously, but I never let it go. I didn’t know I wanted to write, but I knew I wanted to work in entertainment,” Hicks said.
Today, she is the co-creator, executive producer and showrunner of “The Upshaws,” a sitcom on Netflix about a working-class Black family in Indianapolis. Premiering in 2021, the series starring Mike Epps, Kim Fields and Wanda Sykes goes into its fifth and final season on Jan. 15.
Past episodes of “The Upshaws” focused on marital conflicts, infidelity, parenting, homophobia and online bullying. Netflix executives informed cast and crew during the taping of the fourth season’s finale the series was ending
Hicks is grateful for the show’s run on the streamer. “We were proud to do five seasons because not everybody at Netflix gets to do that,” she said.
The cast and crew got to tell a story on their terms, a joke-heavy throwback to old sitcoms.
“We didn’t want to reinvent the wheel but wanted to make it a slice of life as real as if you were walking down an Indiana street, popped into a Black home and that’s how they’re talking to each other.”
Hicks has writing and producing credits on “Girlfriends,” “Insecure” and “Instant Mom.”
When she writes, Hicks drafts character descriptions and dialogue on notepads before typing out teleplays.
She organizes table reads to test the material with the writing staff. “You get to hear it for the first time, and if the room is laughing, you know you have something,” Hicks said.
“It’s addicting hearing immediate laughter and reactions to something somebody wrote right there on the spot.”
As showrunner, leading requires humility.
“I’m not the funniest in the room, but I know what’s funny. You must listen to all the voices, be able to make final decisions and move on,” Hicks said.
Hicks landed her first job in television as a production assistant and extra on “A Different World,” a sitcom about a fictional historically Black college in Virginia. Being on set exposed her to incorporating cultural identity into production.
“It was eye-opening and fun. It felt like I’d gone to Hillman or Spelman (College), and they became my friends. I came back from working on that show with fists in the air,” she said.
In 1996, Hicks got her first staff job on the hit comedy series, “Sister, Sister.” She was one of three Black writers when she arrived, and saw a lot of staff turnover in her first two seasons.
Hicks, who stayed until “Sister, Sister” ended in 1999, said having the support of executive producer Suzanne de Passe — a pioneering female executive at Motown Records — and observing different management styles was crucial.
“I was there after every regime change, saw what and what not to do. After the first season, they fired everybody but me. It went from goofy, silly and fun stuff to stories that became more grounded,” she said.
The following year, Hicks became co-executive producer of “Girlfriends,” a show created by Mara Brock Akil chronicling the lives of four Black women in Los Angeles.
Before the show abruptly ended in 2008, Hicks, who was promoted to showrunner in its sixth season, made sure “Girlfriends” story arcs were collaborative.
“People brought in their own stories, and we talked about what we did over the weekend, last night and putting it onto the characters. We were strong and stayed until the end,” Hicks said.
As for closing out “The Upshaws,” audiences won’t see a happy ending in the last season.
“We don’t want to end with the family winning the lottery, moving to a better neighborhood, going into the supernatural world or wrapping things up in a bow, but you’re going to be satisfied.”
Hicks has submitted new scripts to Netflix as part of a development deal she entered in 2021.
One project she’s excited about is loosely based on her life.
“As funny as ‘The Upshaws’ is, it’s not true to where I come from,” she said. “I have something closer to who Regina is, and that’ll be the cherry on top.”
About the Author
Christopher A. Daniel is a Black Culture reporter for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He is an Atlanta-based, award-winning journalist, cultural critic and ethnomusicologist. He previously taught courses at Morehouse College, Clark Atlanta University and Georgia State University.
