Obie Award-winning actor, playwright, director Roger Guenveur Smith honors his friend Jean-Michel Basquiat in an intimate solo performance which navigates the life and enduring legacy of the legendary artist. Basquiat and Smith met in Los Angeles, where Jean-Michel was painting in a Venice studio, and Roger was rapping as “Hollywatts” on the fertile 1980s club scene. Smith’s politically charged soliloquies found their way onto Basquiat’s canvas, and Smith eventually created “Smiley,” the Basquiat-inspired artist/arsonist for Spike Lee’s classic Do The Right Thing. In Honor of Jean-Michel Basquiat has been presented for retrospectives of the artist’s work at the Brooklyn Museum and MOCA Los Angeles, as well as an acclaimed run at St. Paul’s Penumbra Theatre. Basquiat features live sound design by Marc Anthony Thompson.

ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Roger Guenveur Smith adapted his Obie Award-winning solo performance of A Huey P. Newton Story into a Peabody Award-winning telefilm, which continues to stream on Hulu. His Bessie Award-winning Rodney King is on Netflix. Both Newton and King were scored by Marc Anthony Thompson, and directed for the screen by Smith’s longtime colleague Spike Lee. Smith and Thompson have also collaborated on Otto Frank, distinguished as the Bay Area Solo Performance of the Year, as well as studies of Jimi Hendrix and Bob Marley, iconoclast artists Simon Rodia and Charles White, and baseball greats Juan Marichal and John Roseboro. Their work has been inspired by travel to Iceland, the Dominican Republic, Panama, Jamaica, and San Francisco, where Smith directed his Casa de Spirits, for the Campo Santo Ensemble. Roger studied at Yale University and Occidental College, and has taught at both institutions, as well as Cal Arts, directing his Performing History Workshop.

SOCIALS