About the Play:

Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 has long been a favourite of acting teachers for Female Monologues and Male Monologues.

Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 is a full-length drama by Anna Deavere Smith. Examines the violent aftermath of the Rodney King riots in n South Central Los Angeles, in an acclaimed one-woman stage panorama of dramatic monologues in which the author impersonates many of the people she interviewed about the event. These verbatim portrayals bring together adversaries, victims, eyewitnesses, and observers who have never stood within the same four walls, let alone spoken to each other.

Acclaimed as "an American masterpiece" (Newsweek), Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 is a stunning work of "documentary theatre" in which Anna Deavere Smith uses the verbatim words of people who experienced the Los Angeles riots to expose and explore the devastating human impact of that event. From nine months of interviews with more than two hundred people, Smith has chosen the voices of more than 40 real-life "characters" that best reflect the diversity and tension of a city in turmoil: a disabled Korean man, a white male Hollywood talent agent, a Panamanian immigrant mother, a teenage black gang member, a macho Mexican-American artist, Rodney King's aunt, beaten truck driver Reginald Denny, former Los Angeles police chief Daryl Gates and other witnesses, participants and victims. A work that goes directly to the heart of the issues of race and class, Twilight ruthlessly probes the language and the lives of its subjects, offering stark insight into the complex and pressing social, economic and political issues that fuelled the flames in the wake of the Rodney King verdict.

Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 premiered in 1994 at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, moved to Princeton's McCarter Theater, then to Broadway at the Cort Theatre, where it earned a Tony Award nomination for Best Play. The play has become a favourite scene study vehicle in acting classes and workshops and has been performed in regional, high school, college, and community theatre productions.

Cast: 1 female (or flexible cast from 6 to 25 multi-ethnic actors)

What people say:

"Bears theatrical witness to the barbarity not just of violence but of envy, which in Los Angeles drives both rich and poor crazy. Smith shows people struggling to make coherent sense of their rage and pain … Twilight goes some way toward reclaiming for the stage its crucial role as a leader in defining and acting out that ongoing experiment called the United States." — The New Yorker

"Despite the media saturation of the riots and their aftermath, one leaves this show knowing more … sensitive and often touching." — Variety

"Extraordinary … haunting." — People Magazine

About the Playwright:

Anna Deavere Smith is an American actor, a teacher, a playwright, and the creator of an acclaimed series of one-woman plays based on her interviews with diverse voices from communities in crisis. She has won two Obie Awards, two Tony nominations for her play Twilight: Los Angeles, and a MacArthur Fellowship, and she was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for her play Fires in the Mirror. She has had roles in the films Philadelphia, An American President, The Human Stain, and Rent, and she has worked in television on The Practice, The West Wing, and Nurse Jackie.