CHARTOR Entertainment, African Grove Institute for the Arts, and Los Angeles Inner City Cultural Center to Present World Premiere Readings

CHARTOR Entertainment, African Grove Insitute for the Arts, and Los Angeles Inner City Cultural Center (LAICCC) will team up to present the world premiere readings of "Intimate Stories from The Longwood Writers Workshop" at LAICCC's annual Fall Celebration on Saturday, November 4 at 7pm at the Nate Holden Performing Arts Center, 4718 W. Washington Boulevard in Los Angeles.

CHARTOR Entertainment managing partners Charles Floyd Johnson, also a Longwood Writers Workshop member, and Dr. Victor Leo Walker II, who also serves as executive director of the African Grove Institute for the Arts (AGIA), will present and introduce the readings.

The readings will be delivered by actress-producer-writer-directors Denise Nicholas and Hattie Winston, both members of The Longwood Writers Workship since its founding in 2018, and both alumnae of the Negro Ensemble Company.

Nicholas is known for her roles in the series "Room 222" and "In the Heat of the Night" and the films "Ghost Dad," "Let's Do It Again" and "A Piece of the Action." After writing six episodes for "In the Heat of the Night," she chose to pursue a fulltime writing career. Her debut novel "Freshwater Road" was selected as a best book of 2005 by several major newspapers.

A Broadway veteran, Winston was featured in the series "The Electric Company" and "Becker" and the film "Rugrats" and its Nickelodeon spinoff "All Grown Up." With her husband, composer Harold Wheeler, she adapted Langston Hughes' "Black Nativity" into the award-winning Off-Broadway production "Black Nativity: A Life Story," which she co-directed.

LAICCC's 2023 Fall Celebration will also honor actors Duane "Chief Yellow Feather" Shepard Sr. and Glynn Turman, along with LAICCC's initial participants in the Entertainment Community Fund's Performing Arts Legacy project (Christine Avila, Gloria Calomee, JD Hall and L. Martina Young, Ph.D.), and LAICCC's selection as a Cultural Treasure of South Los Angeles by the Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs.

Tickets for the Fall Celebration are $25.00, available through EventBrite and at the door of the Nate Holden Performing Arts Center. Information: https://www.innercityculturalcenter.org.

About the CHARTOR Entertainment / Los Angeles Inner City Cultural Center partnership:

The Los Angeles Inner City Cultural Center 2023 Fall Celebration is this year's second collaboration of LAICCC, CHARTOR Entertainment and African Grove Institute for the Arts. In April, they presented the Los Angeles premiere of the late Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning playwright August Wilson's autobiographical solo show "How I Learned What I Learned," starring Rocky Carroll, at the Los Angeles Theater Center.

According to CHARTOR managing partners Charles Floyd Johnson and Dr. Victor Leo Walker II, "The CHARTOR Entertainment / Los Angeles Inner City Cultural Center partnership was forged from our commitment to support a Los Angeles cultural organization committed to utilizing art as a catalyst for civic engagement, cultural enlightenment and economic development.

"That was the vision of C. Bernard Jackson when he co-founded LAICCC in 1965: a cultural Phoenix rising out of the ash and rubble of the Watts Riots. LAICCC has since elevated multiple generations of artists including George C. Wolfe, George Takei, Donald McKayle, Luis Valdez and so many others who forged paths that forever changed the cultural landscape of our nation.

"Through our programming development and production partnership, we will shine a spotlight on the history, legacy and importance of this cultural jewel that we all should embrace and support with the time, talent and dollars needed to sustain the organization so that future generations will benefit from the rich legacy of the Los Angeles Inner City Cultural Center."

About Los Angeles Inner City Cultural Center:

Los Angeles Inner City Cultural Center (LAICCC) was the nation's first and most influential minority owned and operated multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, multi-racial and multi-disciplinary visual and performing arts institution, arising "out of the ashes" of the 1965 Watts Rebellion.

Its co-founders, UCLA dance department pianist and composer C. Bernard Jackson and UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute faculty member Dr. J. Alfred Cannon, had a vision that LAICCC could employ the performing and visual arts to heal the scars of the rebellion, improve mental health and increase cross-cultural communications among Los Angeles' diverse ethnic communities who shared similar issues of discrimination on social, justice, cultural, educational and economic issues. Jackson served as LAICCC's artistic and executive director until his death in 1996.

About Charles Floyd Johnson

Charles ("Chas") Floyd Johnson, managing partner of CHARTOR Entertainment, currently serves as executive producer of the long-running hit CBS Television Network series "NCIS." Previously he executive produced the series "J.A.G.," "Magnum, P.I.," "Quantum Leap" and "The Rockford Files," eight two-hour "Rockford Files" movies and two seasons of the ABC Mystery Movie "B.L. Stryker." With George Lucas and Lucasfilm, he produced "Red Tails," about World War II's first squadron of African American fighter pilots, the Tuskegee Airmen, which won the NAACP Image Award for Best Motion Picture. He has also won three Emmy Awards, two for the PBS special "Voices of our People" and one for "Rockford Files."

About Dr. Victor Leo Walker II

Dr. Victor Leo Walker II, managing partner of CHARTOR Entertainment and executive director of the African Grove Institute for the Arts, has served as a Professor at University of California, Stanford University and Dartmouth College, where he produced two National Black Theatre Summits in partnership with Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning playwright August Wilson. Off-Broadway, he co- produced Wilson's play "Jitney," which later won the Olivier Award for Best Play at the British National Theatre. With his partner Paul Carter Harrison, Dr. Walker co-authored/edited the anthology, "Black Theatre: Ritual Performance in the African Diaspora," awarded the Association for Theatre in Higher Education Distinguished Book Award for excellence in scholarship.

About Denise Nicholas

Denise Nicholas - author, actress, activist, three-time Golden Globe nominee and three-time Image Award winner - convened The Longwood Writers Workshop. She starred in the TV series "Room 222" and "In the Heat of the Night." Her films include "Ghost Dad," "Let's Do It Again" and "A Piece of the Action." She was a founding member of the Free Southern Theater and a member of the Negro Ensemble Company. Following "In the Heat of the Night," for which she had written six episodes, she decided to devote herself to writing. Her autobiographical debut novel "Freshwater Road" was named one of the best books of 2005 by The Washington Post, The Detroit Free Press, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Newsday and The Chicago Tribune.

About Hattie Winston

Hattie Winston is an actress, singer, director and producer, known for her roles in the TV series "Becker," "The Electric Company," "Nurse," "Homefront;" the movies "Jackie Brown" and "Rugrats;" and its TV spinoff "All Grown Up." A member of the Negro Ensemble Company, she began her career onstage, starring in the Broadway hit "The Tap Dance Kid" and also appearing in "Two Gentlemen of Verona," "I Love My Wife," and "The Me Nobody Knows." She and her husband, composer Harold Wheeler, adapted Langston Hughes' "Black Nativity" into the off-Broadway production "Nativity: A Life Story," winning five New York Audelco Awards including Best Musical and Best Director for Winston and James Stovall.

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