Jeanne Sakata News

On March 15th, “Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992” opened at Center Theatre Group / Mark Taper Forum. Playwright Anna Deavere Smith attended and posed with the cast, along with director Gregg T. Daniel, creative team members and special guests. Check out photos from the opening here!

Last night, Center Theatre Group hosted a Black Out Night performance of Anna Deavere Smith’s “Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992.” Rodney King’s Daughter Lora Dene King gave a pre-show welcome, followed by a reception after the performance. Check out photos from the event here!

The Los Angeles City Council honored Center Theatre Group on March 10, 2023 by proclaiming Wednesday, March 15, 2023 as “TWILIGHT: LOS ANGELES, 1992” Day. Councilmembers Marqueece Harris-Dawson, Curren D. Price Jr., Heather Hutt, and Hugo Soto-Martinez presented the proclamation to Center Theatre Group's Associate Artistic Director Tyrone Davis on behalf of the theatre company.

Center Theatre Group will host a series of community events to celebrate “Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992,” which is returning to the Mark Taper Forum 30 years after its world premiere. Anna Deavere Smith's groundbreaking production has been revised for a cast of five performers and is directed by Gregg T. Daniel.

The Audio Publishers Association has announced finalists for the 2023 Audie Awards®, the premier awards program recognizing distinction in audiobooks and spoken-word entertainment. Winners across 26 competitive categories will be revealed at the Audie Awards Gala on March 28. The ceremony will be streamed to the public from Chelsea Piers’ Pier Sixty in NYC. 

The west coast premiere of playwright Anna Deavere Smith’s expanded solo show Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 opens March 15, 2023, at the Mark Taper Forum (with previews beginning March 8th). Gregg T. Daniel directs the cast of Hugo Armstrong, Lovensky Jean-Baptiste, Lisa Reneé Pitts, Jeanne Sakata and Sabina Zúñiga Varela performing the 30-40 characters of the play that Anna originally performed all on her own. Gregg was most gracious to carve out time from rehearsals to answer a few of my queries.

Originally performed solo by Smith, “Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992” has been reimagined for a cast of five performers. Thirty years after its world premiere, Center Theatre Group will celebrate the West Coast premiere of the revised production by giving away 1,000 tickets to Angelenos.

Angels Theatre Company will present the premiere of PREDICTOR, a play based on the real-life story of Margaret Crane who, in 1967, defied all odds and expectations to become the inventor of the first home pregnancy test.

L.A. Theatre Works, the world’s leading producer of audio theater, is introducing American audiences to Once Upon A Time in Nazi Occupied Tunisia, a terrifying, yet surprisingly funny dark comedy by Josh Azouz that took London by storm in its 2021 world premiere at the Almeida Theatre.

Carla Ching is among the first three recipients to win the Los Angeles New Play Project Award, which supports playwriting and producing in smaller Los Angeles theaters. Her new play, Revenge Porn or the Story of a Body, opening September 23 at The Pico, directed by Bernardo Cubría for Ammunition Theatre Company, was originally developed as part of the 2021 Ammo Writers' Lab. It takes a very public look into the private lives of people who hurt the ones they love most, and how or if revenge should be taken to offset the pain. I decided to speak with Carla Ching about the play and how it was developed for its world premiere.

Winner of the first Los Angeles New Play Project Award, Carla Ching's Revenge Porn or The Story of a Body” makes its world premiere on Friday, September 23, 2022 at The Pico. Directed by Bernardo Cubría for Ammunition Theatre Company where it was part of the 2021 Ammo Writers' Lab, the play takes a very public look into the private lives of people who hurt the ones they love most.

 Mischief, madness and merry-making. L.A. Theatre Works, the world’s leading producer of audio theater, will present a state-of-the-art recording of William Shakespeare’s delightful, gender-bending rom-com, Twelfth Night. 

L.A. Theatre Works has added Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead to its collection of state-of-the-art audio theater, the largest library of its kind in the world. Rosalind Ayres directs Tom Stoppard’s wildly witty and inventive, Tony Award-winning first play, which is available for pre-order now and for digital download beginning September 2.

Viewers who remember and were affected by THE LARAMIE PROJECT will see parallels in HERE THERE ARE BLUEBERRIES, a beautiful and no-less-significant new play written by Kaufman and Amanda Gronich, co-produced by the Tectonic Theater Project and directed by Kaufman at the La Jolla Playhouse.

Following the world premiere opening night of Here There Are Blueberries on Sunday July 31, 202, Tectonic Theater Project and La Jolla Playhouse have released the first images of the production. Check out the photos here!

Boise Contemporary Theater has announced the Second Annual BIPOC Playwrights Festival August 1-6, funded in part by a partnership with Boise Cascade, a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, and the incredible generosity of the Morrison Center Endowment Fund.

 La Jolla Playhouse has announced the cast and creative team for its world-premiere production of Here There Are Blueberries, by Tony Award nominee Moisés Kaufman (Playhouse’s 33 Variations) and Amanda Gronich, conceived and directed by Moisés Kaufman.

Ojai Playwrights Conference announced the founding of the Robert H. Egan Legacy Fund at their 25th Anniversary Benefit Gala on June 4, 2022. Honoring the work of outgoing Artistic Director/Producer Robert Egan, the fund will support visionary OPC New Works Festival playwrights who are creating challenging new plays and imagining a better future for all. Egan leaves his role at OPC at the end of this year.

On June 4, 2022, the Ojai Playwrights Conference will celebrate 25 successful seasons with a Benefit Gala to be directed and produced by OPC Artistic Director/Producer Robert Egan at the Kirk Douglas Theatre in Los Angeles.

Following their recent leadership transition in which Producing Artistic Director Zak Berkman succeeded former Executive Artistic Director Abigail Adams, People’s Light has announce an exciting expansion of their artistic team with four new appointments. Broadway-favorite Steve H. Broadnax III (Thoughts of a Colored Man) transitions from Resident Director to People’s Light Associate Artistic Director.