Twilight Los Angeles 1992 On The Road A Search For American Character Anna Deavere Smith by Anna Deavere Smith 9780385473750, 9780385473767, 9781101911280, 0385473753, 0385473761, 110191128X instant download after payment.

"In May 1992 I was commissioned by Gordon Davidson, artistic director/producer of the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, to create a one-woman performance piece about the civil disturbances in that city in April 1992. For over ten years now I have been creating performances based on actual events in a series I have titled On the Road: A Search for American Character. Each On the Road performance evolves from interviews I conduct with individuals directly or indirectly involved in the event I intend to explore. Basing my scripts entirely on this interview material, I perform the interviewees on stage using their own words. Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 is the product of my search for the character of Los Angeles in the wake of the initial Rodney King verdict.
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In the course of my research for the play I interviewed about two hundred people. Due to time restrictions, however, the number of people I was able to portray on stage was limited to about twenty-five. This book includes some of the material I performed both in the play’s Los Angeles version for the Taper and in the version presented at the New York Shakespeare Festival. It includes additional interviews that were not included in the stage versions, which I hope will enrich the reader’s understanding of the conflicts that erupted on April 29, 1992. For those who both see the play and read the book, I hope the book can serve as a companion to the theater experience."—From the introduction by the author