#ROGER GUENVEUR SMITH RISE OF A NATION PROFESSIONAL#

Newton Story, based on the Black Panther founder, and Juan and John, about the notorious baseball fight when San Francisco Giants pitcher Juan Marichal attacked Los Angeles Dodgers catcher Johnny Roseboro with a bat during a game. Some of his other theatrical works have been A Huey P. Ironically, he is taking a break from directing the drama The Mountaintop - about Martin Luther King’s last night on earth - to bring the show to town.Īs an actor, he has divided his time between television, film and theater, with highlights including American Gangster and HBO’s Oz.

He is particularly pleased to be presenting this show locally over Martin Luther King Jr. We thought he was on his way back, but he lost his life at the bottom of his backyard swimming pool.”

Those of us who cared about him were happy. “He was doing a book tour and speaking engagements and was very much in high demand and regard. “It was tragic to lose him on the 20th anniversary of the riots,” he explains. Smith was heartbroken when he heard of King’s death, especially considering the timing. “Yet the message that he imparted was indelible, useful for those of us willing to listen,” he says. Smith calls him a blue collar worker who found himself in an extraordinary circumstance, as an ordinary man. This King, however, did not graduate from high school and could not assume a life of leadership. I happen to think that the speech King delivered, in which he asked if we could all get along, is one of the great American speeches, up there with another King.” He was given a speech by his lawyers to deliver but he rejected it and went with his heart.

“It’s a simple message but one worth listening to. “He had an instructive moment when he said we are all stuck here for a while let’s work it out,” Smith says. “In a way, Rodney King was kind of consumed by outsiders, folks who did not know him at all.”Īt a time when race relations are as problematic as when King was beaten, Smith feels what King had to say was invaluable, particularly what King said in a speech after the acquittal. “It was important that I approach it as an outsider,” he says. He read King’s autobiography and all the references he could find. Unlike other productions he had created, he did not approach family members or friends of King. While doing his research, he was careful in what he took in. Yet it resonated, and he has taken it around the world, including New York, Amsterdam and London. Smith thought this new work was going to be an abbreviated memorial/meditation, something for the season lamenting King’s loss. “Rodney was never the butt of jokes but a symbol of resiliency and wisdom,” he says.Ī few months after King’s death, Smith was on stage - again - in Los Angeles trying to work King out. Smith had referenced King several times in his previous works, including a production he orchestrated the weekend after the beating, in which he predicted that the officers who beat King would be acquitted. Moved by that, he wanted to know exactly what had happened. The performer was getting ready to research a piece on Otto Frank, the father of Anne Frank, when he learned of King’s death in the summer of 2012. It’s a piece that brings the late King to life and examines race relations in the United States. His one-man show Roger Guenveur Smith: Rodney King debuts in Atlanta this weekend, with performances January 15-16 at 8 p.m., at Georgia Tech’s Ferst Center for the Arts.

#ROGER GUENVEUR SMITH RISE OF A NATION PROFESSIONAL#

Yet King has certainly been an influence in his personal and professional life. (Photo by Patti McGuire)Īctor Roger Guenveur Smith never met Rodney King, the construction worker who, in 1991, was beaten by white police officers in Los Angeles - officers who were later acquitted - setting off riots all over the city.

Roger guenveur smith rise of a nation