‘227’ Creator Talks About The Inspiration Behind The TV Show

Christine Houston, creator of the television show ‘227’ attended Kennedy-King College and wrote the play “Two Twenty Seven” while in school there. PHOTO PROVIDED BY KENNEDY-KING COLLEGE.
Christine Houston, creator of the television show ‘227’ attended Kennedy-King College and wrote the play “Two Twenty Seven” while in school there. PHOTO PROVIDED BY KENNEDY-KING COLLEGE.

‘227’ Creator Talks About The Inspiration Behind The TV Show

By Tia Carol Jones

Christine Houston went back to school at 42 years old to prove a point to her three sons. She wanted to teach them by doing, to show them that she could be a housewife and a mother, work an eight-hour job and go to school and get all A’s. She decided to enroll at Kennedy-King College because she heard the college had a great reputation for its theatre program. Houston had dreams of becoming an actress and upon enrolling in Kennedy-King, she tried out for the first play of the season and landed the lead role.

“I said, Oh Lord have mercy, I picked the right thing, God has blessed me, I’m going to Hollywood. Little did I know that I was really going to go to Hollywood, but I wasn’t going to be on stage, and I wasn’t going to be acting,” Houston said.

Houston talked about her journey writing plays as a student at Kennedy-King College to writing television scripts in Hollywood during a meet and greet at Kennedy-King College on Wednesday, Sept. 25th. The event was part of programming that includes an exhibit, which features memorabilia from the shows Houston worked on. It was the second time Kennedy-King opened the exhibit, the first time was November 2023. Since then, more memorabilia was added.

Alisa McLaughlin, Executive Director, Center of Equity for Creative Arts at Kennedy-King College, called Houston an excellent person within the creative arts.

“Her impact is global. So, this intimate setting is really special for us at Kennedy-King College to honor you as an alumna and also just to have you here,” McLaughlin said.

Houston said you never know what’s in store for you until you take one step forward and go out there and see. She said God gave her a talent for writing that she didn’t know she had, until she was asked to write a play while at Kennedy-King. She agreed to write the play, but didn’t think it would win the contest it was being entered into, because she had never written a play before.

It was a professor that told Houston in order to be successful in writing, to write what you know. Houston decided to write the play about her childhood and growing up with her best friend at 227 E. 48th Street. As she wrote the play, she included other characters who lived in the apartment building. She remembered her friend’s mother who was funny and who talked about everybody in the building and in the neighborhood. She started to write about her friend’s mother.

“I found out that in order to be a good writer, you have to be a good storyteller. So, I started writing telling the story about me and my girlfriend growing up at 227 E. 48th Street and how funny her mother was,” Houston said.

Houston let the school enter the play into a playwrighting contest and it won. Then, they entered the play into a national contest. She was surprised that the head of the department at Kennedy-King College could relate to the story about all Black characters. It was entered into the Norman Lear Playwrighting Award and won. The prize was to write a segment for one of the six shows Lear had on television. She chose the Jeffersons and the segment was televised.

Because Houston wrote for television, she became a member of the Writers Guild. It enabled her to write for television. Houston would go on to also write for “Punky Brewster.” She said she is working on the sequel to “227,” which details her family’s move from Bronzeville to the Park Manor neighborhood.

Houston also taught writing and media arts at Chicago State University. One piece of advice she gave the audience was to keep the creative control of whatever they write. The script for the play was changed once it became a television show, changing the location from Chicago to Washington, DC, the time period from the 1950s to the 1980s and the name “Two Twenty Seven” was changed to “227.”

The “227” exhibit is on display at the Kennedy-King College library, located at 6401 W. Halsted until Dec. 7th. For more information about Kennedy-King College, visit www.ccc.edu/kennedy/home.

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