Q: We continue to see a recycling of events in our society related to race tension and inequality. What, if any role, do you feel art can play to invoke positive change?
A: I feel like art can provide a doorway for people to see things that they otherwise may not have. It can bring an awareness that can provoke a reaction for change.
Q: Why is it important for this story to be told today?
A: The battles of the past are still being fought. There are too many situations that have happened in the past few years that draw similarities. Telling this story will push the realization that some injustices are unfortunately the same as they were 30yrs ago. It will reinforce a desire and hunger for change.
Q: What do you hope the audience takes away from this experience?
A: I hope it will cause conviction to gain better understanding of the struggles that are faced because of racial inequalities. I hope the story we convey will appeal to their hearts and push the audience to find a way they can contribute to a better society.
Q&A with Todd Santa Maria
Q: We continue to see a recycling of events in our society related to race tension and inequality. What, if any role, do you feel art can play to invoke positive change?
A: Great art has a way of holding up a mirror to society and allowing people to see things from someone else's point of view. Ideally, this is not done in a pedantic way. It is entertaining yet thought-provoking and hopefully yields displays of empathy and constructive dialogue
Q: Why is it important for this story to be told today?
A: Nothing has changed. In a way, things have gotten worse. We have become desensitized to police brutality, even when it captured on video. Racism has been here since the beginning of time, and it is not going away. The best thing we can do is continue to talk about these issues and change hearts and minds in the process.
Q: Describe one of the characters you play, and the heart of that particular speech.
A: One of the characters I play, Jin Ho Lee, shares his thoughts on the role of slavery and how Asians can actually identify with that because Asians were also slaves at one point. It isn't as well-known as the slavery enforced on African Americans. Ultimately, at the heart of his speech, he articulates that we are all more similar than we think. And we can also empathize with one another.
Q: What do you hope the audience takes away from this experience?
A: First, I hope they are entertained. Second, I hope it keeps a dialogue going. The more we talk and share, the more things change.
Q&A with Avery Owens
Q: We continue to see a recycling of events in our society related to race tension and inequality. What, if any role, do you feel art can play to invoke positive change?
A: Art can help to create a perspective in which people realize the truths around them, as well as the injustices around them. Art in almost any form opens the doorway to discussions and deeper thought.
Q: Why is it important for this story to be told today?
A: The Rodney King/LA Riots story proves that history repeats itself when it is not truly analyzed.
Q: Describe one of the characters you play, and the heart of that particular speech.
A: One of my characters is Keith Watson, a man involved in a beating during the Riots. The heart of his speeches and words is that he unleashed aggression and frustration that had been pent up. Caught in the moment, he takes matters into his own hands and makes a choice that endangers another life, and he does it out of emotion.
Q: What do you hope the audience takes away from this experience?
A: I hope that those, like myself, who were very young when these Riots happened revisit the accounts of what happened. There is a chilling parallel between what transpired in that year and what has taken place over the recent years now, here in America.
Q&A with Bonnie Gregson
Q: We continue to see a recycling of events in our society related to race tension and inequality. What, if any role, do you feel art can play to invoke positive change?
A: Art can act as a magnifying glass to focus attention on important issues that deserve acknowledgment. At its best art can act as a mirror to awaken self-reflection and awareness.
Q: Why is it important for this story to be told today?
A: Even though the events depicted in the play occurred thirty years ago, these injustices are still happening today. During the Black Lives Matter protests, I took part in the collective chanting “No Justice, No Peace.” I discovered those words had its origins in the protest of the death of Latasha Harlins during this time.
Racism against the Asian community has seen a dramatic increase lately as a consequence of people blaming the pandemic on innocent Asian Americans.
Q: Describe one of the characters you play, and the heart of that particular speech.
A: I am particularly drawn to the monologue of Mrs. Young Soon Han entitled “Swallowing the Bitterness”(second to last in the play). On one hand, she has anger for the racism against the Asian community who she feels are seen as nothing in society. On the other hand, she is happy for the accomplishments of the Black community. But at the core she has mixed feelings and yearns for the two communities to come to a mutual understanding.
Q: What do you hope the audience takes away from this experience?
A: I hope the audience can take away lessons of history literally repeating itself from Rodney King to the events that sparked the Black Lives Matter movement and reflect on how society has changed and how it has not evolved. I hope it inspires thoughts on what we can do to affect real change in big and small ways.
Q&A with Ryan Duncan
Q: Why is it important for this story to be told today?
A: Art has always been a vehicle for learning and change. Art seeks truth and you can illustrate this fact by how dictators and corrupt regimes around the world go after and try to take down the artists first. They're seen as subversive in that they can relay current events into art and performance and thus raise awareness and inspire change. Every era, every moment in history, has an artistic shepherd. We can chronicle history by art and artists expose the realities of the human experience.
One of my favorite quotes is:
“What is art but a way of seeing?”
-Thomas Berger, writer
Q: Describe one of the characters you play, and the heart of that particular speech.
A: I believe the playwright describes Twilight Bey, as the heart of the show. The show is titled with his name and ends with his profound monologue about what his name means to him and how he's in limbo. I feel like the heart of this show lies in that, the limbo of being in a storm of opinions, information, biases, and lies. The limbo of wanting social justice and having scenarios like the Rodney King beating, play out over and over. We're always living in that twilight of pain and hope.
Q: What do you hope the audience takes away from this experience?
A: I hope the audience sees the echoes of this play in everything that's happened since. This is one blip on the screen of injustice and chaos and there are so many blips, on repeat. I hope the audience sees the need for justice reform, the need for important and painful dialogue, the need to look at the history of inequity instead of using denial to feel better. I hope audience members see themselves in at least one character. I also hope they can acknowledge we're living in the shadow of white supremacy and greed and it may just take each of us to make a move in order to heal. It will also take a long time.
Q&A with Sean Davis
Q: We continue to see a recycling of events in our society related to race tension and inequality. What, if any role, do you feel art can play to invoke positive change?
A: Art in general brings awareness and perspective to the issues. Art is all about making something relatable so if we can use art to spread the message. I also think art has a place in manipulating emotions so in this case, art can be used as a weapon to fight injustice and to build a following.
Q: Why is it important for this story to be told today?
A: Look at the world we're in. With the events of George Floyd, Sandra Bland, Breonna Taylor, etc. There are TOO many instances that relate to the events touched on in the play. This was in the early 90’s and these STILL HAPPEN. It’s infuriating to see the horrifying events in the news and how we as people have not learned. Today the story needs to be told.
Q: Describe one of the characters you play, and the heart of that particular speech.
A: One of the characters I represent is Reginald Denny. He is a victim of violence and I feel the heart of his story is so positive. He has a sort of optimism about the future and even though he was hospitalized and beaten almost to death, he does not blame the attackers and he empathizes with them and I think that is not only very strong and brave but it is also very transparent. He knows of the disparity in the system and society, knows he’s in one side of it, and knows it’s a wrong, uneven playing field. His view of the future is so optimistic and I think that’s something we can all take from his story.
Q: What do you hope the audience takes away from this experience?
A: I want the audience to be conflicted. I want the audience to be uncomfortable with their privileges, if they have them, and be aware and open their eyes. Revel in that because until you wake up and realize where you stand, you will NEVER be an advocate for change. We need to take off our rose colored glasses and know before things can get better, we need to attack the reasons and examples for why things are terrible now.
Q&A with Steve Benko
Q: We continue to see a recycling of events in our society related to race tension and inequality. What, if any role, do you feel art can play to invoke positive change?
A: While art reflects life, it has also always influenced it. Who can, for example, deny the influence of Picasso's Guernica in bringing worldwide attention to the cruelty of the Nazis and the suffering of Spain during its civil war? Or the works of Charles Dickens and Victor Hugo in raising consciousness about social injustice and poverty in England and France?
Q: Why is it important for this story to be told today?
A: This story reminds us that we are part of a long, historical struggle, that what we are facing today others have faced before us and more will face after us. It's inspirational to know that we are not alone, and that although progress may be slow and setbacks may be encountered, in the long course of history we are part of a larger movement in a positive direction.
Q: Describe one of the characters you play, and the heart of that particular speech.
A: My character Police Commissioner Stanley Sheinbaum embodies the spirit of trying to understand other points of view and bridge the seemingly unbridgeable gaps between people, but also the difficulty in bringing others along to do the same. "Which side are you on?" he is asked. "Why do I have to be on a side?" he answers.
Q: What do you hope the audience takes away from this experience?
A: I would hope audiences take away that there are multiple sincere, heartfelt and understandable points of view on these fraught situations, depending on what each individual brings to it and is affected by it, and all of them short of the truly heartless, no matter how alien from each other, must be understood and in some way validated for there to be any hope of us overcoming these cultural divides.
Q&A with Jane Barnes
Q: Why is it important for this story to be told today?
A: Because the drama and inequity continue. Twilight, on stage and on the page, allows the reader/audience to hear the voices of a wide range of our fellow citizens, raw and unadorned, in the process of reliving a landmark historical event. It is very much the same today – George Floyd, Brianna Taylor, and before that, John Lewis on the Pettus Bridge.
Q: Describe one of the characters you play, and the heart of that particular speech.
A: Josie Morales = A clerical worker with the City of Los Angeles, Josie was a witness to the Rodney King beating. She was scheduled to testify at the trial but never called. At the beginning of her monologue, as she recounts the event, she seems soft in her retelling of her story. But she’s not. She is a spiritual woman, continually haunted long after the trial through a dream of the assault. She feels deeply the injustice of not being able to tell the story of an eyewitness, which could have altered the results of the trial. Through her words we feel the escalation of her despair to never be able to let her dream / testimony rest.
Q: What do you hope the audience takes away from this experience?
A: That this piece, like most effective art, asks far more questions than it answers – questions that remain, unfortunately, just as unanswered and every bit as necessary today as they did in 1992.
Q&A with Robert Alexander
Q: We continue to see a recycling of events in our society related to race tension and inequality. What, if any role, do you feel art can play to invoke positive change?
A: Art serves as a really strong source of building awareness. It's like slipping some healthy stuff in with unhealthy food. Some people won't accept a message unless it comes disguised as something else.
Q: Why is it important for this story to be told today?
A: Racism, sexism, xenophobia and a wide-ranging set of evils came to a head during the last administration. A lot of hateful people felt emboldened by what seemed to be encouragement to act on what they felt. This story helps us show that not much has changed on either side and more work needs to be done.
Q: Describe one of the characters you play, and the heart of that particular speech.
A: I play a character who is black lawyer and was representing a Korean store owner who was on trial for murder. In one of his speeches, he was aghast to find out that he was being accused of being a sellout. In his response to that he did everything he could to deflect. He used self-deprecation as a tool to convince a reporter those allegations weren't really about race. It was about him being a lawyer, or a faulty gun.