A divorce goes horribly, hilariously wrong in Cheaper to Keep Her, the new stage play by NAACP Award–winning writer and director Je’Caryous Johnson. The couple at the heart of the dispute: R&B legend Brian McKnight and actress Vivica A. Fox, aided and abetted by Wendy Raquel Robinson and gospel comedian Jonathan Slocumb. A special limited engagement hits the Hobby Center for the Performing Arts Thursday through Sunday, March 25 through 28, as part of I’m Ready Productions’ spring tour.

Executive producers Johnson and Gary Guidry founded the Houston-based company when they were just teenagers, and their work has since transformed African-American theater. Their plays — including Love Overboard with Avant and Khalil Kain, Men Cry in the Dark with Allen Payne, The Maintenance Man with Richard Roundtree and 3 Ways to Get a Husband with Billy Dee Williams — have been seen by more than two million people in 50 U.S. cities. I’m Ready has been awarded the NAACP 2007 Trailblazer Award and three NAACP Theater Awards for Friends & Lovers. They’re about to shoot their first film, The Marrying Kind.

Leading man McKnight has released 13 albums, seven of which have gone platinum, and has sold more than 20 million albums worldwide. His honors include the Soul Train Award, NAACP Image Award and 16 Grammy nominations. His co-star Fox received the NAACP Theater Awards’ Spirit Award for starring in the I’m Ready play Whatever She Wants. She also won the NAACP Image Award and Prism Award for Best Actress in a TV drama series in 2005 and 2006, plus the Trumpet Award for Outstanding Career Achievements in Film and the 2003 Lady of Soul Lena Horne Career Achievement Award. (You may know her best from HBO’s Curb Your Enthusiasm.)

For tickets or more information about Cheaper to Keep Her and I’m Ready Productions, visit imreadyproductions.com.

Image: Courtesy of I'm Ready Productions