It’s been 37 years since a new soap opera has premiered on network television, so we’re due for a new infusion. This one promises to give us plenty of Black love in the form of romance and family. Beyond the Gates, the first hour-long soap opera featuring a predominantly Black cast, premieres on CBS next week.
Set in a leafy Maryland suburb just outside of Washington, D.C., in one of the most affluent African American counties in the United States, the Duprees are the powerful and prestigious multi-generational family that reigns as the posh gated community’s Black royalty. The love between family is center stage as three generations of Duprees are featured throughout the series.
Karla Mosley plays Dani Dupree, a former model determined to see her daughter, Chelsea, follow in her footsteps, whether her offspring likes it or not. “Dani’s a storm who just can’t keep her emotions inside. She really feels deeply: She loves deeply, and she hates deeply,” Mosley told EBONY during our exclusive set visit.
RhonniRose Mantilla stars as Dani’s daughter, Chelsea. “She’s really a wild card. She does what she wants. She’s still figuring herself out,” she said.
“She is a high fashion model and a social media influencer, and she just wants to try to find her own path and step out on her own from underneath her mother and kind of just make her own life and her own choices. But it’s difficult coming from the Dupree background, family lineage and all of that.”
The series marks a return to TV for veteran actress Tamara Tunie. She plays family matriarch Anita Dupree opposite Tony award-winning singer and actor Clifton Davis, who stars as Vernon Dupree. Rounding out the family’s cast is Daphnée Duplaix as their other daughter, Dr. Nicole Dupree.
Mosley is thrilled to be on a show that follows three generations of Black women. “A Black matriarch leading this and then her daughters is so refreshing, but also reflective of our culture. Women are the people who drive everything. It’s why we talk so much right now about protecting Black women and thanking Black women. We have been carrying this country and this world on our backs for a long time,” she shared.
“It’s exciting to see women who are self-made, who are our mothers, but also have their own businesses, lives, careers, passion and ambition, and also find a way to balance that with love for their family and community,” Mosley added.
Getting the chance to work with Tunie and Mosley is something that Mantilla cherishes. “I was raised by my mother and grandmother, so it means the world to me to be able to show strong Black women and learn from Karla and Tamara. It’s an incredible opportunity.”
For both women, being featured in EBONY’s cameo is a dream come true.
“My grandmother had a shelf full of EBONY magazines, and when I was little, I would make vision boards. I would cut the models out because they looked like me…EBONY was the magazine to me growing up,” Mantilla exclaimed. “When I found out that y’all were coming, it was like my childhood dream coming true. It’s so full circle to me.”
Added Mosley, “I’ve been reading EBONY for many years, from the nineties when it was all that soft lighting and everything. It’s cool to see that. The best part of this business is we sometimes see our dreams come to fruition.”
Sheila Ducksworth, series executive producer and president of CBS Studios/NAACP Venture, has been waiting 30 years to bring forth a soap opera that’s focused on us; this is the culmination of that dream.
“To launch the first daytime soap opera in over a quarter century and to be the first hourlong daytime soap in TV history to feature a Black cast is remarkable,” she shared in a former interview. And it’s especially sweet with EBONY’s small cameo in an upcoming storyline.
Taking an hour out of our day to watch OPP (other people’s problems) may not seem like such a big deal. But in a time where we need a little escapism from the barrage of news, it’s nice to know we can slip beyond the gates and live vicariously through the eyes of people who look and sound like us.
Beyond the Gates premieres February 24 on CBS.
