"Rodney King" @ Bootleg

Obie Award-winning actor, writer, and director Roger Guenveur Smith returns to Bootleg with new work inspired by the late Rodney King, whose question "Can we all get along?" continues to resonate 20 years after he posed it to a riot-torn Los Angeles. King ascended to prominence via a vicious beating by members of the Los Angeles Police Department in 1991, which was captured on videotape and broadcast internationally. The four officers' acquittal the next year provoked the most deadly civil disturbance in United States history. King expired tragically last month at his Rialto home.

Smith has frequently performed his history-infused work at Bootleg, which he describes as his "neighborhood theater" : Patriot Act, an improvised collaboration for the 4th of July; Frederick Douglass Now, a contemporary take on Douglass' classic 19th century texts; In Honor of Jean-Michel Basquiat, an intimate meditation presented on what would have been the late artist's 50th birthday; and the premiere run of Who Killed Bob Marley?

Smith's work for the international stage also includes Juan and John, inspired by the remarkable friendship of baseball greats Juan Marichal and John Roseboro; the transatlantic love story Iceland; The Watts Towers Project, inspired by the Simon Rodia masterwork; and, with Mark Broyard, Inside the Creole Mafia, cited by the LA Weekly as Production of the Year for both its premiere and revival runs.

Roger adapted his Obie Award-winning solo performance of A Huey P. Newton Story into a Peabody Award-winning telefilm and directed the Ovation Award-winning Radio Mambo: Culture Invades Miami.

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Bootleg is a 1930’s warehouse and a home for Los Angeles artists who work in theater, music, dance, and film. Bootleg provides artistic support and production resources to help these artists create original and daring interdisciplinary work. Combining art forms creates work that is surprising, unexpected, exciting and reflective of life in Los Angeles, a city where the boundaries are elastic, and not bound by tradition. Bootleg offers Los Angeles a celebration of itself.

Photo Credit: Patti McGuire