Debra Martin Chase is an Emmy nominated and Peabody Award winning television and motion picture producer whose company, Martin Chase Productions, is affiliated with Universal Television, a division of NBCUniversal Television Group. It was affiliated with the Walt Disney Company from 2001 to 2016. She was the first African American female producer to have a deal at a major studio.
She has produced the film franchises The Princess Diaries, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and The Cheetah Girls. Her other motion picture producing credits include Sparkle, a dramatic musical starring Jordin Sparks and the late Whitney Houston; Just Wright starring Queen Latifah and Common, which won the 2011 NAACP Image Award for Best Screenplay; Courage Under Fire starring Denzel Washington; and The Preacher’s Wife starring Washington and Houston. Her television credits include the Emmy-winning Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella with Brandy Norwood and Houston; the Lifetime Television series Missing; and the Disney Channel’s original musical Lemonade Mouth. In 2016, Chase was awarded a prestigious Ford Foundation Grant to develop several projects focused upon social justice, diversity and inclusion.
Additional support for this program provided by the Warfield Center for African and African American Studies and the Fine Arts Diversity Committee.