“Taibi Magar directs ensemble version of award-winning docudrama”

When the American Repertory Theater comes to play, they swing for the fences. Whether producing plays that later head to Broadway, or putting memorable and clever spins on known critical works, we’re always looking forward to what they have coming up next.

And indeed, this next show is a big one. We look forward to checking it out and speaking with some of the talent, but for now, here’s more from the team at A.R.T. below. As always, we recommend getting tickets sooner than later. They tend to move quickly … 

Thirty years ago, the news of the police officers’ acquittal in Rodney King’s police brutality case reverberated throughout the streets of Los Angeles. Called “a riot,” “a revolution,” and “a social explosion,” the events that followed drew worldwide attention—and inspired playwright, actor, and scholar Anna Deavere Smith (Notes from the Field: Doing Time in Education, Let Me Down Easy, Fires in the Mirror) to dissect the anatomy of the civil unrest. Her Tony Award-nominated, Obie Award-winning exploration derived from interviews with more than 350 Los Angelinos reveals the fault lines that set the city ablaze. Smith revised the play last year for a cast of five while in residence at Signature Theatre, where Taibi Magar (Macbeth In Stride, We Live in Cairo) directed this acclaimed production.

(A.R.T.) at Harvard University, led by Terrie and Bradley Bloom Artistic Director Diane Paulus and Executive Director Kelvin Dinkins, Jr., announced the cast of Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992. Conceived, written, and revised by Anna Deavere Smith, directed by Taibi Magar, and presented in association with Signature Theatre, Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 begins performances at the Loeb Drama Center in Harvard Square on Sunday, August 28; opens officially on Thursday, September 1; and closes on Saturday, September 24, 2022. 

The cast of Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 includes Elena Hurst, Wesley T. Jones, Francis Jue, Carl Palmer, and Tiffany Rachelle Stewart. 

Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 features scenic design by Riccardo Hernandez (Jagged Little Pill, The White Card, and more), costume design by Linda Cho (Endlings), lighting design by Alan C. Edwards, sound design by Darron L. West (The Tempest, bobrauchenbergamerica, and more), and projection design by David Bengali (1776, We Live in Cairo). Michael Leon Thomas (Notes from the Field, Let Me Down Easy) is the movement coach, Amy Stoller (Notes from the Field, Let Me Down Easy) is the dialect designer, and Ann James is the sensitivity specialist. 

“When I wrote Twilight, I thought about it like an opera, with all different kinds of relationships that are happening between us in this country,” Smith said in a statement. “At this time in America, we are thinking about why we can’t find a way to belong together, and I think we have a chance given the larger conversation in the world and the political conversation in the world right now to put the play against a modern background and see if there are new things to learn.”  

AmericanRepertoryTheater.org/Twilight