Jazz pianist Mary Lou Williams was a genius ahead of her time. From child prodigy to "Boogie-Woogie Queen" to groundbreaking composer to mentoring some of the greatest musicians of all time, she never ceased to astound those who heard her play. But for a Black woman in the early 1900s, life as a star did not come easy.

"Shangri-La Plaza" is a musical-comedy pilot made for CBS-TV in 1990. The all-sung “Shangri-La Plaza” was directed by Nick Castle and written and created by Mark Mueller and Nick Castle. It starred The Office’s Melora Hardin, Chris Sarandon and Broadway’s original Beast and Javert Terrence Mann, a two-time Tony Award Nominee for Best Actor. It also featured the very young tap dancing phenomenon Savion Glover in one of his first television appearances. The pilot was filmed on location in an actual mini-mall at the corner of Vineland Avenue and Burbank Boulevard in North Hollywood, California.