Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, the Year’s Senior Play, Premieres Virtually
In planning for the school year, Director of Dramatics Derek Nelson knew that he would have to be creative in order to stage a drama production during a pandemic. His solution elegantly responded to two realities of 2020: The isolation and social distancing forced by COVID-19, and the uprising against racial injustice that marked the spring and summer, specifically. Mr. Nelson’s solution was to enlist Roxbury Latin’s oldest students—and their Winsor School and Boston Arts Academy counterparts—to stage Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992, a work of documentary theatre by playwright and actor Anna Deavere Smith.
In the play—performed as a series of monologues—Ms. Smith uses the verbatim words of nearly 300 people whom she interviewed after the Los Angeles riots—which were sparked by the beating of Rodney King and the subsequent trial—to expose and explore the devastating human impact of that event. “Given the political and social unrest of the last eight months,” says the play’s director Mr. Nelson, “it is stunning, revelatory, and tragic that Anna Deavere Smith’s Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 speaks to us 28 years later.”
Twenty-one Roxbury Latin boys have been working on the 22 men’s monologues since September, both in-person and in Zoom rehearsals, along with 12 girls from Winsor and one girl from Boston Arts Academy.
The monologues were filmed individually at both schools, and the resulting film was edited by Evan Scales, a Boston videographer. The production premiered on the evening of November 20, via livestream and YouTube.
Roxbury Latin boys in the cast:
Jake Carroll (I)…………………..Stanley Sheinbaum
Colson Ganthier (I)………………….…..Charles Lloyd
Ale Philippides (II).…………………Anon. Man, Juror
Aydan Gedeon-Hope (I)……………….…Keith Watson
Matt Hoover (III)………………………….……Joe Viola
Edozie Umunna (I)…………………………Cornel West
David Sullivan (II)……………………Shelby Coffey III
Alejandro Denis (II)…………………….…Paul Parker
Michael Thomas (III)…………………….…Talent Agent
Emmanuel Nwodo (III)……………….……Twilight Bey
Ryan Lim (I)………………….…Chris Oh, Jin Ho Lee
Eli Bailit (II).………………….……….…Peter Sellars
Will Grossman (III)………………..…..……Daryl Gates
John Austin (III)…………………..……Reginald Denny
Frankie Gutierrez (II)……………..………Ted Briseno
Esteban Tarazona (I)………………..…Rudy Salas, Sr.
Ben Crawford (I)………………………..…Bill Bradley
John Wilkinson (I)………………..Sgt. Charles Duke
A.J. Gutierrez (I)……….……….…Octavio Sandoval
Krishan Arora (II)……………..…Federico Sandoval
Daniel Sun-Friedman (I).………..………Walter Park
Watch the production in its entirety here. (The production runs two hours, 15 minutes.)