From Stage to Storyliving: MML Partners with Kahlil Ashanti to Bring His Acclaimed Solo Show “Basic Training” Into a New Era

We were honored when Kahlil Ashanti sat down with us to help empower his story.

Ashanti spent part of his Air Force enlistment performing in war zones and refugee camps most people never think to ask about, as part of the Air Force’s own touring entertainment unit — a self-contained troupe where the soldiers on stage were also each other’s stage crew, loading the trucks, hanging the lights, and building the very shows they starred in. One day that meant stepping off a military transport at Guantanamo Bay with a performance to deliver and no idea what they had gotten themselves into.

He turned that experience into Basic Training, an acclaimed autobiographical solo show and New York Times Critics’ Pick, in which Ashanti plays every character himself — the drill instructors, the performers, the family he carried with him — and which has moved audiences around the world.

A Hybrid AI / Live-Action Concept Trailer

Together, we brought that story into a new form: a hybrid AI/live-action concept trailer that carries viewers into the moments Kahlil lived — the barracks, the makeshift stages, the camps — as the foundation for an expanded series.

Generative tools opened doors a conventional production could never reach: places that no longer exist, moments no camera was there to record. But none of it works without real human storytelling underneath — countless hours of listening, filming, editing, and care; the work of depicting Kahlil’s story faithfully and carrying viewers into the past.

“This is what storyliving looks like: not narrating history, but stepping inside it.”

Storyliving, Not Storytelling

Storyliving is MML’s production philosophy: pairing documentary rigor with AI craft so that audiences don’t just watch a true story — they inhabit it. The subject stays at the center of the process from the first interview to the final frame, and the technology serves the memory, never the other way around.

What’s Next

The concept trailer is only the beginning. We’re looking forward to supporting the expansion of this IP into different verticals — from an episodic series to live and immersive formats — with more announcements coming soon.

About Kahlil Ashanti

Kahlil Ashanti is a performer, writer, and filmmaker. His solo show Basic Training, drawn from his years in the U.S. Air Force’s touring entertainment unit, earned a New York Times Critics’ Pick and has been performed for audiences worldwide. Follow his work on YouTube.