Andrea Ambam (she/her, Moderator) is a performance artist and writer whose roots sprout from Cameroon. As a politically engaged artist who believes in the art’s potential for movement-building and transformative justice, Andrea pulsates at the intersection of storytelling and truth-telling. Currently, Andrea is a Playwrights Realm Writing Fellow, a Brooklyn Arts Exchange (BAX) Artist-In-Residence, and the Programming Manager and Host at Level Forward. She has developed her multi-hyphenated practice in collaboration with Signature Theatre, PEN America, Broadway Advocacy Coalition, Anna Deavere Smith, EmergeNYC, Classical Theatre of Harlem, NYU Prison Education Program, and others. Andrea lives in Brooklyn and holds a Master’s degree in Art & Public Policy from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.
Rashad Robinson is the President of Color Of Change, a racial justice organization with more than 7 million members who demonstrate the power of Black communities every single day. Color Of Change uses innovative strategies to bring about lasting change in systems and sectors that affect Black people’s lives. Under Rashad’s leadership, Color Of Change has developed winning strategies for leading the $7 billion advertiser boycott of Facebook, changing how crime, policing and race are represented on TV, winning net neutrality as a civil rights issue, and holding decision-makers accountable to Black communities—from local prosecutors to multinational corporations. Rashad’s analysis, advocacy and activism are featured frequently in a wide range of major media and community media. He also regularly serves as a keynote speaker at events across the country, won a Webby Award for Best Political Podcast, has been a speaker at roundtables convened by both Oprah Winfrey and President Obama, has received several other awards and has authored several published works related to social change. He testified to Congress about regulating Big Tech corporations, and about ensuring racial equity in banking, housing and education, served as Co-Chair of the Aspen Commission on Information Disorder and sits on the board of the Marguerite Casey Foundation.
Eisa Davis is an award-winning, multi-disciplinary artist working onstage, onscreen, and in hybrid performance spaces. Her musical works include two albums (Something Else and Tinctures), The Essentialisn’t (upcoming at Jack in Brooklyn, winner of a Creative Capital Award) and music and lyrics for Walter Mosley’s Devil In A Blue Dress. Her thirteen full length plays include Bulrusher (Pulitzer finalist), Angela’s Mixtape (a New Yorker Best of the Year), and the bilingual Mushroom (translated by Georgina Escobar, world premiere, People’s Light, 2022). Notable collaborations: the black femme celebration AFROFEMONONOMY // WORK THE ROOTS, for which she directed and starred in a film of the late Kathleen Collins’ Remembrance; penning two episodes for Spike Lee’s She’s Gotta Have It on Netflix; performer/creator in Carrie Mae Weems’ Grace Notes; text for the Cirque du Soleil ice show Crystal; and serving as producer and writer for the upcoming FX limited series Justified: City Primeval. She has originated stage roles in Lynn Nottage and Duncan Sheik's The Secret Life of Bees (AUDELCO Award), Dave Malloy and Rachel Chavkin's Preludes, Kings (Drama League nomination), Julius Caesar (Shakespeare in the Park), This, The Call, Luck of the Irish, and Passing Strange. Screen work: Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ adaptation of Octavia Butler’s Kindred, Extrapolations, Men of Divorce (upcoming), Mare of Easttown, Betty, Pose, The Looming Tower, House of Cards, The Wire. A Cave Canem fellow, New Dramatists alumna, Obie winner for Sustained Excellence in Performance, and USA Fellowship and Herb Alpert Award winner in Theatre, Eisa was born in Berkeley, CA and lives in Fort Greene, Brooklyn.
Dria Brown is an artDoula (creative producer, facilitator, artist) from South Carolina, living and working in Lenapehoking (Brooklyn). Dria’s multi-hyphenate practices center the lush and freedom-filled possibilities that exist in a world where all Black people, and specifically Black women and femmes are centered and cared for. Dria is currently the Co-Director of Programming at the Tony award winning arts advocacy non profit, Broadway Advocacy Coalition, a Theater of Change Facilitator at Columbia Law School, the Senior Creative Producer of Britton & The Sting—a funk liberation band based in NYC and a Creative Producer on a new Terence Nance project premiering at The Whitney Museum in the fall. Dria finds sanctuary in culinary food rituals that nourish her loved ones and lives with her co-dependent dog daughter Mooriah Carey in Crown Heights.
Irene Sofia Lucio (Patricia, she/her). Broadway: Slave Play, Wit. Off-Broadway: Romeo y Julieta (The Public Theater), Slave Play, Love and Information (NYTW), OrangeJulius (Rattlestick), Undertaking (BAM), King Liz (Second Stage), We Play for the Gods (WP). Regional credits: Yale Rep, Studio Theater DC, Cal Shakes among others. TV: “The Americans,” “Bartlett,” “Madam Secretary,” “Gossip Girl,” “Casi Casi.” Co-creator of “Buts” web series (NBCU Short Film Festival winner, Imagen Award nom). Education: Princeton and Yale School of Drama. Native of San Juan, Puerto Rico.
Jakeem Dante Powell(Gary, he/him) Is thrilled to be returning to the Broadway cast of Slave Play! Select credits: This American Wife (Fake Friends), Twelfth Night (Yale Rep), One Room (Weston Playhouse), If Pretty Hurts… (Yale School of Drama), Slave Play (Yale School of Drama). Upcoming film: Rustin. MFA Yale School of Drama. IG: jakeemdpowell
Devin Kawaoka(Dustin, he/him). Broadway debut. Off-Broadway: City Of (Playwrights Realm), Unnatural Acts (Classic Stage Company) for which his performance was awarded the Rosemarie Tichler grant. Select film/TV: “Lucifer,” “Goliath,” “American Housewife,” Marvel’s “The Runaways,” “Criminal Minds,” “The Path,” “Good Trouble,” The Manor, Under the Silver Lake, Under the Lantern Lit Sky, Submission. Training: MFA, NYU Graduate Acting.
Rashaad Hall (Phillip u/s, he/him)is a multi hyphenate actor and artist from Chicago based in Los Angeles. His theatre credits include Steppenwolf Theatre Company’s The Brothers Size by Tarell Alvin McCraney (OWN’s David Makes Man, Moonlight) and he has performed regionally at The Goodman Theatre, Victory Gardens Theatre, Steppenwolf Theatre, Haven Theatre, and The Black Ensemble Theatre among others. Film credits include his recurring guest star role on the Emmy nominated web-series "Brown Girls", and a lead role in the queer indie feature Rendezvous in Chicago. He has been nominated for a Chicago Joseph Jefferson award with the cast of The Hairy Ape directed by Monty Cole. As a writer, and director he has devised work with The SlamFam Ensemble creating theatre based in spoken-word performance poetry. He is represented by Paonessa Talent Agency and MRK Management. Thanks to God and all his family immediate, and chosen.
Elizabeth Stahlmann(Alana, she/her). Broadway: Slave Play. Theatre credits include Grounded (Westport Country Playhouse-CT Critics Circle Award), The Humans, The Cake (The Alley Theatre), The Acting Company (three seasons), The Guthrie Theater. TV: “City on a Hill,” “The Equalizer,” “Law & Order: SVU.” Graduate of University of MN/Guthrie Theater (BFA), Yale School of Drama (MFA).
Robert O'Hara (Director, he/him) has received the NAACP Best Play and Best Director Award, the Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding New Play, two Obies and the Herb Alpert Award. Broadway: Slave Play (Tony nomination). Off-Broadway: he directed the world premieres of Jeremy O. Harris’ Slave Play, Nikkole Salter and Dania Guiria’s In the Continuum, Tarell McCraney’s The Brother/Sister Plays (Part 2), Colman Domingo’s Wild with Happy, Kirsten Childs’ Bella: An American Tall Tale, Ross Baum and Angelica Cheri’s Gun and Powder and his own plays, Bootycandy, Mankind, and Insurrection: Holding History. His upcoming projects include directing O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey Into Night, directing Anthony Davis’ opera X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X and writing and directing several film and television projects.
Nearly thirty years after the Los Angeles uprising following the Rodney King verdict, Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 returns home to the Mark Taper Forum to be reimagined with an ensemble cast for a new generation of audiences. In this conversation—featuring guests Lora King, Patrisse Cullors, and Robert Lee Johnson, with host Andrea Ambam—we unpack how Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 shines in a new light in the year 2023, following the death of George Floyd and the subsequent racial reckoning that rang around the world. We'll also uplift the names of Tyre Nichols, Keenan Anderson, and the countless other unjust acts of state sanctioned violence that have taken place since then. Through storytelling and open dialogue we seek to find answers to the prompt from Rodney King himself—can we all get along?
The dominant narrative reported about the 1992 LA riots is one of division and violence born out of a great injustice. Yet what lives just under the surface of that narrative is a surprising and seldom-explored story of truce. In this conversation, we uncover the Watts Truce, consider the circumstances that bring communities together, and explore how unity, solidarity, and comradery can be built across race and ethnicity through organizing and through pop culture during the most unexpected times. Featuring Shinese Harlins-Kilgore, Hyepin Im, and Aurea Montes-Rodriguez, and hosted by Andrea Ambam.
