Bronzeville (play)

rdf:langString Bronzeville (play)

rdf:langString Bronzeville is an original play written by Tim Toyama and Aaron Woolfolk. 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. The play is named after the nickname given to the Little Tokyo, Los Angeles, neighborhood from 1942 to 1945 when Japanese Americans were taken from their homes and put into internment camps. During that time, many African Americans migrating to California from the southern United States settled in Little Tokyo, which became known as Bronzeville. The play is about an African American family from Mississippi that moves to Los Angeles. When they find a Japanese American man hiding in the attic, the family must confront their own values as they struggle to both protect themselves and do what is right. The timeline of the play runs from the spring of 1942 to the spring of 1945. Bronzeville had its first revival as an abridged version in May 2011 at the Manzanar National Historic Site in Independence, California. It was produced by The Robey Theatre Company in association with Manzanar National Historic Site and Inyo Council for the Arts. A second revival production, this time of the full play, was produced by The Robey Theatre Company in association with the Latino Theater Company and Kathie Foley Meyer and was staged at the Los Angeles Theatre Center in June and July 2013 as part of the Project Bronzeville festival. On March 28, 2014, a staged reading of the play was presented by The Lorraine Hansberry Theatre in San Francisco, California.