 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(May 2007) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) |
| Formation | 1994 |
|---|---|
| Type | Theatre group |
| Purpose | Black theatre |
| Location |
|
Notable members | Danny Glover, Co-Founder Don Cheadle, Trustee Delroy Lindo, Trustee Blair Underwood, Trustee |
| Website | www.robeytheatrecompany.com |
Robey Theatre Company is a Los Angeles-based non-profit theatre company.
Robey Theatre Company was founded in 1994 by Danny Glover and Ben Guillory. It takes its name from the pioneering Black actor and activist, Paul Robeson. Robey's mission is to explore and develop relevant, provocative, and innovative new plays written about the Black American experience, as well as to reinterpret established works. The rich culture and history of Black people is a potent, beautiful, sometimes tragic but always inspiring and illuminating reality. Robey offers an environment to support the telling of these stories. [1]
In 2006 Robey Theatre Company joined a multicultural consortium called the "Cultural Roundtable" at THE NEW LATC, created to bring multicultural theatre to audiences in the Los Angeles Theatre Center venues in downtown Los Angeles. [2] Other performance groups belonging to the Cultural Roundtable include the Latino Theater Company, Playwrights' Arena, Culture Clash, Cedar Grove OnStage, American Indian Dance Theatre and the UCLA School of Theater Film and Television. [3] Robey Theatre Company developed Bronzeville, with playwrights Tim Toyama and Aaron Woolfolk, presenting its world premiere in April 2009, in association with THE NEW LATC.
In 2019, the Robey Theatre Company was featured in Juney Smith's documentary The Robeson Effect which headlined at the San Francisco Black Film Festival [4] and the Pan African Film Festival. [5]
Robey Theatre Company has collaborated with East West Players, Greenway Arts Alliance, Center Theatre Group at the Kirk Douglas Theatre, Against Type Theatre Company and THE NEW LATC
Daniel Lebern Glover is an American actor, film director, and political activist. He is known for his lead role as Roger Murtaugh in the Lethal Weapon film series. He also has leading roles in the films The Color Purple (1985), To Sleep with Anger (1990), Predator 2 (1990), Angels in the Outfield (1994) and Operation Dumbo Drop (1995). Glover has prominent supporting roles in Silverado (1985), Witness (1985), Saw (2004), Shooter (2007), 2012 (2009), Death at a Funeral (2010), Beyond the Lights (2014), Dirty Grandpa (2016), and Sorry to Bother You (2018). He is an active supporter of various political causes.
Tracy Lynn Middendorf is an American television, movie, and stage actress. Middendorf's most notable roles were in the horror film Wes Craven's New Nightmare, the MTV series Scream and the HBO series Boardwalk Empire. She also appeared in the Broadway production of Ah, Wilderness!. She has won two Ovation Awards, one Drama-Logue Award and one Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for her stage work and also received an American Movie Award in 2015.
Tryst is a romantic play set in Edwardian London. Tryst had its debut on April 6, 2006 at the Promenade Theatre in New York.
Del Shores is an American film director and producer, television writer and producer, playwright and actor.
Christopher Inadomi "Chris" Tashima is a Japanese American actor and director. He is co-founder of the entertainment company Cedar Grove Productions and Artistic Director of its Asian American theatre company, Cedar Grove OnStage. He is an Academy Award winner for directing the film Visas and Virtue as well as starring in it.
Tim Toyama is a playwright and producer. He is Sansei living in Los Angeles, California. He is co-founder of the Asian American media company Cedar Grove Productions, and its sister Asian American theatre company, Cedar Grove OnStage. He attended California State University, Northridge (CSUN) as an English major.
Cedar Grove Productions is an independent production company based in Los Angeles, CA., specializing in media and theatre arts representing the Asian Pacific American community. Media projects are educational, with Visual Communications (VC) serving as a non-profit fiscal sponsor.
The Latino Theater Company (LTC) is a theatre producing organization based in Los Angeles, California.
Stephen Sachs is an American stage director and playwright. He is currently the Co-Artistic Director of The Fountain Theatre in Los Angeles, which he co-founded in 1990.
David Gallo is an American scenic designer and media/projection designer for Broadway, international productions, television, and arena shows.
Aaron Woolfolk is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, and playwright. He shot his first feature film The Harimaya Bridge in Kōchi Prefecture, Japan and San Francisco. The film had a nationwide theatrical release in Japan in the summer of 2009, and had a limited independent release in the United States in 2010. His play Bronzeville, which he co-wrote, opened to critical acclaim in 2009 and has since enjoyed two successful revivals. His podcast dramas There's Something Going on With Sam and Renaissance Man were nominated for numerous awards in 2015 and 2016. Woolfolk was the recipient of an ABC Entertainment Talent Development Grant, and was later a Walt Disney Studios/ABC Entertainment Writing Fellow.
Ben Guillory is an American actor and theatre producer and director.
Cedar Grove OnStage is an Asian Pacific American theatre arts organization established in 2006, based in Los Angeles, co-founded by playwright Tim Toyama and actor/director Chris Tashima who serves as Artistic Director. It is a division of the entertainment company, Cedar Grove Productions and their focus is to develop, produce and present new and original Asian American theatre works.
Levy Lee Simon is an American playwright, actor, director and screenwriter, perhaps best known for his trilogy about the struggle for Haitian independence, For the Love of Freedom.
Simon Levy is an award-winning theatre director and playwright, who has been the Producing Director/Dramaturg with The Fountain Theatre in Los Angeles since 1993.
Daniel Beaty is an American actor, singer, writer, composer and poet. Beaty is known for his blend of music, movement, and words in such original works as Emergence-See and Through The Night.
David Barr III is an American writer and playwright of African descent.
Jennifer Haley is an American playwright. She grew up in San Antonio, Texas and studied acting at the University of Texas at Austin for her undergraduate degree. Haley also received a MFA in playwriting at Brown University in 2005, where she worked under American playwright and professor, Paula Vogel. Now living in Los Angeles, Haley is pursuing a career in theatre, film and television.
Lindsay Draper Jones is an American composer and sound designer for theater, television and film. He has also taught and lectured at numerous universities and schools across the country.
Bronzeville is an original play written by Tim Toyama and Aaron Woolfolk. It was developed and produced by the Robey Theatre Company. The original production and two subsequent revivals were directed by Ben Guillory. The play had its world premiere at the Los Angeles Theatre Center in Los Angeles, California on April 17, 2009 and enjoyed an extended, sold-out run. Woolfolk and Toyama were subsequently nominated for an Ovation Award, and they and Guillory were nominated for NAACP Theatre Awards.