Inner City Cultural Center presents August Wilson’s How I Learned What I Learned, starring Rocky Carroll

Los Angeles premiere of Wilson’s final play

25th anniversary celebration of the Town Hall inspired,

African American Theater in L.A.

The Los Angeles premiere of How I Learned What I Learned, the autobiographical one-man play by the late Tony Award- and two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright August Wilson.

The dramatic reading of the play features Rocky Carroll (NCIS, Chicago Hope, Roc), who earlier in his career was nominated for a Tony Award for his role in August Wilson’s The Piano Lesson on Broadway.

Following the play reading, Charles Floyd Johnson (Executive Producer of NCIS, Magnum PI, Rockford Files, the NCAAP Image Award winning film Red Tails) will host a 25th anniversary retrospective / prospective on the Town Hall “African American Theater: The Next Stage – Los Angeles” convened in 1998 by August Wilson, Dr. Victor Leo Walker II and their colleagues.

Rocky Carroll will join in the retrospective / prospective along with Dr. Walker, Mariea Cromer and Ifa Bayeza (all of whom participated in the 1998 Town Hall), Professor Dominic Taylor, Ernest Dillihay and moderator Dr. Oscar Edwards.

This event is presented by Los Angeles Inner City Cultural Center (LAICCC), UCLA Beloved Community Initiative (BCI), African Grove Institute for the Arts, Inc. (AGIA), August Wilson Estate, UCLA School of Theater Film & Television, The Latino Theatre Company @ the Los Angeles Theatre Center (LATC), CHARTOR Entertainment, Diversity Equity Inclusion Group, LLC, and Arts Culture Entertainment.

The April 15 presentation serves as a preview of Beloved Community Awareness Week 2023, presented by UCLA’s Beloved Community Initiative from April 17-25, celebrating the legacy of

• The philosopher Josiah Royce, who created the concept of “The Beloved Community,” and after whom UCLA’s Royce Hall is named;

• Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., who expanded upon the concept of “The Beloved Community” in a historic speech at UCLA in April 1965; and

• Los Angeles Inner City Cultural Center founders C. Bernard Jackson and Dr. J. Alfred Cannon, UCLA staff / faculty members in 1965 who activated the concepts of multicultural, color-blind casting and utilizing the arts as a community healing tool following the 1965 Watts Uprising.

Prior to moving to New York, August Wilson was one of the first participants in Los Angeles Inner City Cultural Center’s programs as well as the Penumbra Theater in Minneapolis. He is but one of many distinguished alumni of LAICCC, which now partners with UCLA’s Beloved Community Initiative (BCI) in presenting the annual Beloved Community Awareness Week.

Further information: http://www.innercityculturalcenter.org

https://www.uclabelovedcommunityinitiative.org