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The Arts Beat is a weekly deep-dive into Memphis arts, music, dance, theater, fashion, film and events. Keep scrolling for a roundup of the best arts and culture stories from the week. Have a story idea? Send it to eperry@dailymemphian.com.
At the Overton Park Shell on Saturday, Sept. 20, lit-up letters “OIYG” sat on the right of the stage.
In introducing his free variety show, Princeton James Echols explained what he had heard years prior from his Atlanta pastor.
“People will suffer if you don’t operate in your gift.”
Echols, a Coldwater, Mississippi-native and University of Mississippi graduate, at the time was working in financial services for Sherwin-Williams. He took the words to heart and quit his job to move back to Memphis and start Princeton James Productions.
That was in 2016.
Today, the actor, writer, producer and director has appeared in the Netflix film “Uncorked” and on NBC’s “Bluff City Law,” hosts a summer performing arts camp, produces a murder mystery event series that travels around the South, and serves as co-chair of the Greater Memphis Chamber’s Music and Entertainment Council.
This weekend, his Soulful Murder Mystery Experience returns to the Halloran Centre for three shows between Saturday and Sunday.
In December, Echols is expected to travel to northern Italy as part of a Memphis delegation participating in a film exchange between the Memphis & Shelby County Film and Television Commission and the Porretta Film Festival.
The Craig Brewer-written and directed “Hustle & Flow” will screen at the festival, paired with a new film, “Hoop Street.” Memphian Teresa Dickerson, a former Memphis Grizzlies employee and high school basketball player, wrote the film. Echols directed and produced it.
Returning to the gift(s)
Though Echols grew up in Mississippi, he also feels like he was raised in Memphis. Both parents worked in Memphis and his family came to Memphis to shop and for entertainment.
“My roots are in Coldwater, Mississippi, but my entertainment roots are in Memphis, Tennessee,” he said.
The self-described “serial creative” said that after watching “The Cosby Show” at age 7, he decided he wanted to be an actor.
At age 9, he landed a role in a BlueCross BlueShield commercial that was filmed in Coldwater.
“I was like, ‘This is what I want to do for the rest of my life,’” Echols said. “And I never did it again until I graduated from college.”
As a third grader, Echols recounts a teacher telling him to be “realistic” when he told her he wanted to be an actor.
“She said, ‘Baby, you’re going to be an accountant, ’cause you’re great at math,’” Echols said. “And I said, ‘Yes, ma’am.’”
As it turns out, even as an artist, he uses his degree “all of the time,” he said.
After acting in a few plays at Hattiloo Theatre after college, Echols moved to Atlanta from Memphis in 2013.
Soulful Murder Mystery Experience
“It’s like if an escape room and dinner theater had a baby,” Echols said when describing his Soulful Murder Mystery Experience concept.
 Princeton James Echols (left) and Halloran Centre's Jennifer McGrath at Echols' Soulful Murder Mystery Experience. (Courtesy Orpheum Theatre Group)
Jennifer McGrath, the Halloran Centre’s vice president of education, community engagement and programming, said that it is an honor to be presenting the Soulful Murder Mystery as part of the Halloran Presents season.
“I really can’t say enough good things about Princeton,” she said. “I think he is an incredible visionary, and I think he’s an incredibly talented artist. … He’s just really an extraordinary, visionary, extraordinary artist, but perhaps most importantly, he’s just a really, really incredible human being.”
McGrath said that people enjoy the immersive experience of the murder mystery series. Attendees are invited to, but required to dress up for the show’s theme, which could range from 1970s disco to this weekend’s theme, which is “Bridgerton”-esque. They solve puzzles during the event and the “mystery” itself, and they dance to music from singers and a DJ. The shows also include food and a bar.
McGrath described a mutually beneficial relationship between Princeton James Productions and the Orpheum Theatre Group.
“For us, it’s been really beneficial because it brings people that are already fans of Princeton and of his productions and the Soulful Murder Mystery that have maybe never been to the Halloran Centre or the Orpheum,” McGrath said. “...Then on the flip side, we hope that we’re doing the same for him. We have a built-in enormous audience here of people that have been coming to the Orpheum and the Halloran Centre for years.”
This is the second season that the Soulful Murder Mystery Experience has been part of the official Halloran Centre Presents lineup. There were four shows last season, and there will be four shows this season.
The Queen’s Regency Ball, happening this weekend, is the second of this season.
The Jenkins Family Reunion took place in August. The Rellik Casino & Hotel is scheduled for February 2026.
The fourth show is to be announced.
“What’s really cool is that if you go to one of these events and you enjoy yourself, you can keep coming back because it changes every single time, almost, and it’s a different theme and a different costume and a different sort of world of characters to immerse yourself in,” McGrath said.
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The Halloran Centre is the Memphis home for the event series, but the Soulful Murder Mystery Experience also travels. It’s been held in cities including Houston; Dallas; Little Rock, Arkansas; Nashville; Jackson, Mississippi; and Atlanta.
It has also been put on as a private or corporate event.
“It’s a great thing to bring a group to,” McGrath said. “...You can come completely by yourself and make friends at your table with your team, you can bring a date, and it’s a really fun experience that you can bring a whole group, bring your office members, or bring your family, or bring whoever and work together to try to solve it (the mystery).”
‘Hoop Street’
 (Submitted)
“Hoop Street” will screen on the “Memphis Day” of the Porretta Film Festival (Festival del Cinema di Porretta). The festival takes place from Dec. 6 to 13.
For the exchange between the two organizations, a jury comprising professors, a producer, and a film author chose “Hoop Street” from four Memphis films.
In 2024, the Italian festival screened six short films from Memphis.
 “Hoop Street” set photo, including director Princeton Echols (center right) and screenwriter Teresa Dickerson (center left). (Submitted)
“We are very excited to show off films from our sister city to our international audience of film lovers,” Luca Elmi, president of the Porretta Film Festival, said in a statement.
Memphis-Shelby County Film Commissioner Linn Sitler called the partnership “a dream come true.”
“Hoop Street” follows a teen hoping to earn a basketball scholarship.
“When Teresa first approached me about ‘Hoop Street,’ I immediately saw her passion, her work ethic, and her integrity, and I knew I wanted to help steward that vision,” Echols said in a statement. “I’m grateful to God for the opportunity to operate in my gift and to contribute to another feature film coming out of Memphis and the Mid-South.”
Kooler Kids and Kooler Grands
In the summer, Echols operates the Kooler Kids Performing Arts Enrichment camp under his nonprofit.
That encompasses acting, singing, dancing, costuming, hair and makeup, stage management, film, photography, writing, producing and directing.
The students produce a show “from top to bottom” as the culminating experience.
There are also in-school classes in Journey Community Schools.
The Kooler Grands is performing arts enrichment but for seniors.
 The Kooler Grands perform at the Overton Park Shell on Sept. 20, 2025. (Wes Hale/Special to The Daily Memphian)
Echols’ group works with them on acting, singing, dancing, film and costumes.
“The most important thing with the Grands is we want to archive their stories,” he said. “We record them and archive their stories.”
The overall goal for the outreach is to ensure performing arts enrichment is accessible to seniors and youth in underserved communities and that creative-industry development is accessible to creatives in places that don’t have the industry yet.
“I really want to make sure that even looking at the Kooler Kids programming, we’re able to heal through arts programming and storytelling,” Echols said. “And with the Grands, we’re able to achieve and honor and build legacy with the stories of their ancestors and preserve our own history and our communities that have gone without it.”
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