FREDERICK DOUGLASS NOW Announced At August Wilson African American Cultural Center

After performing Frederick Douglass NOW on Martha's Vineyard, a site where Douglass himself spoke 145 years earlier, Obie Award-winning playwright, actor, and educator Roger Guenveur Smith will bring his acclaimed one-man show to the August Wilson African American Cultural Center (AWAACC) in Pittsburgh as a continuation of his partnership with the Center as its inaugural guest theater curator.

AWAACC will present Smith's work, inspired by the life and legacy of pioneering abolitionist and feminist, for a one-night-only event on November 5, 2022, at 7pm. Tickets for Frederick Douglass NOW are available at www.aacc-awc.org. AWAACC is one of the largest non-profit cultural organizations in the country focused exclusively on the African American experience and the arts of the African diaspora.

"Roger Guenveur Smith is a prolific writer and artist, and after his performance of Juan and John and Frederick Douglass NOW on the Vineyard, we wanted to find a way to continue our relationship with him. I am honored to partner with him again as we create a direct line from the historic tabernacle on Martha's Vineyard to the August Wilson African American Cultural Center by sharing his work with both communities," said AWAACC President and CEO Janis Burley Wilson. "Theatre has the unique ability to force us to grapple with our past while reimagining our future, and I'm incredibly grateful to Roger for bringing this amazing work to audiences in Pittsburgh."

Smith returns to the stage with Frederick Douglass NOW, which he began the development of as an undergraduate at Occidental College and has since played to international acclaim. He returns to the American stage combining Douglass' classic texts with jazz-infused original narrative in a work which the Los Angeles Times describes as "a personal benchmark for this remarkable artist." In 1841, Douglass delivered his first public address on Nantucket at a meeting of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. He is documented to have spoken in 1876 in Oak Bluffs, at the site of the Tabernacle, where the AWAACC partnership first premiered with a performance, the first time Smith has performed at the historic site.

"It is a great honor to emerge from a tragically enforced hiatus with Frederick Douglass NOW, in partnership with the August Wilson African American Cultural Center," said Roger Guenveur Smith. "Douglass' words continue to resonate today, as does August Wilson's, forever emblazoned in the American imagination, demanding that the nation live up to its as yet unfulfilled revolutionary promise."

AWAACC is a leader in presenting programming that reflects the diversity of Pittsburgh and the nation. In addition to its upcoming work with Smith as guest curator, the Center continues its support of artists, particularly Pittsburgh-based emerging artists of color with its first-ever artist-in-residency program, B.U.I.L.D., creating a platform for diverse artists and organizations that have historically received unequal access to funding and resources for the development of new work. To learn more about the August Wilson African American Cultural Center, please visit https://aacc-awc.org/.

Roger Guenveur Smith is an actor, writer, and director who initiated his signature solo performance Frederick Douglass NOW as a senior honors project in American Studies at Occidental College. At Yale University, he worked as a graduate assistant at the Frederick Douglass Papers. He has since continued to play Douglass to international acclaim, while constructing an unparalleled body of work for the stage and screen. Mr. Smith adapted his Obie Award-winning A Huey P. Newton Story into a Peabody Award-winning telefilm. His Bessie Award-winning Rodney King is currently streaming on Netflix, both of which were directed for the screen by Mr. Smith's longtime colleague Spike Lee. Their many collaborations also include Do the Right Thing, for which Mr. Smith created the stuttering hero, Smiley. His history-infused work for the stage includes studies of Christopher Columbus, Jimi Hendrix, and Bob Marley; iconoclast artists Jean-Michel Basquiat, Simon Rodia, and Charles White; baseball greats Juan Marichal and John Roseboro; and, most recently, Otto Frank, father of diarist Anne Frank. He has also devised theatrical travelogues of Iceland, Panama, New Orleans, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Miami. His screen credits include work inspired by Rosa Parks, Thurgood Marshall, Malcolm X, Michael Manley, Nat Turner, Madam C.J. Walker, and Booker T. Washington, as well as the series Queen Sugar, K Street, and Oz. Among the many distinguished venues which Frederick Douglass NOW has played are The Public, Penumbra, and Lorraine Hansberry Theatres; the Kennedy Center; the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London; and Brooklyn's Prospect Park with the Branford Marsalis Quartet in celebration of the 2018 Douglass Bicentennial.

The August Wilson African American Cultural Center is a non-profit cultural organization located in Pittsburgh's cultural district that generates artistic, educational, and community initiatives that advance the legacy of Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright August Wilson. One of the largest cultural centers in the country focused exclusively on the African American experience and the celebration of Black culture and the African diaspora, the non-profit organization welcomes more than 119,000 visitors locally and nationally. Through year-round programming across multiple genres, such as the annual Pittsburgh International Jazz Festival, Black Bottom Film Festival, AWCommunity Days, TRUTHSayers speaker series, and rotating art exhibits in its galleries, the Center provides a platform for established and emerging artists of color whose works reflect the universal issues of identity that Wilson tackled, and which still resonate today.

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