Signature Theatre Presents Three-Part SigSpace Series Exploring TWILIGHT: LOS ANGELES, 1992

Signature Theatre will host a series of events through their SigSpace virtual programming with Signature Playwright-in-Residence Anna Deavere Smith, exploring Smith's play, Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 as it relates to current civil unrest awoken by the deaths of George Floyd and many others.

In this three-part live SigSpace Summit series, where Signature artists speak with guests of their choosing, Anna Deavere Smith invites Twilight Bey (activist for whom the play is named), Susan K. Lee (Deputy Mayor of Public Safety for the City of Chicago), and Héctor Tobar (dramaturg for original production) for candid conversations about how current protests against police brutality and the resurgence of the Black Lives Matter movement echo the events around the arrest and beating of Rodney King revisited in her play, Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992. The first installation of the series will be with Twilight Bey on Monday, September 14 at 5 PM EDT. To attend the event on Zoom RSVP here or you can catch the event live on Facebook.

Nearly three decades ago, the news of the police officers' acquittal in Rodney King's police brutality case reverberated throughout the streets of Los Angeles. Variously called a "riot, a revolution, or a social explosion," the events that followed the verdict drew worldwide attention. At that time, playwright, actor and scholar Anna Deavere Smith responded artistically by dissecting the anatomy of the unrest. She interviewed over 350 Los Angelenos in preparation for the performance. Declared a "rich, panoramic canvas of a national trauma" by The New York Times, Smith's transformative study of the 1992 L.A. riots reveals the fault lines that set the city ablaze.

The Signature Theatre production of Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 will reimagine the formerly one-woman play to feature a cast of five. It was originally scheduled for performances in April 2020 and was postponed because of the pandemic, but Signature is committed to produce the play in an upcoming season.

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