Roger Guenveur Smith: The Watts Towers Project

“Smith’s monologue has a freestyle bounce, like a series of vivid dreams over the course of a restless night.” —Variety

Obie Award–winning writer/director/actor Roger Guenveur Smith (Huey P. Newton, Iceland) returns to the Walker with a funny and riveting jazz-infused meditation on making one’s mark as an artist. Inspired by workingclass “outsider” artist Simon Rodia’s Watts Towers in Los Angeles, this tour-de-force solo theater piece is a free-ranging, multicharacter trip through the City of Angels that ruminates on Basquiat and baseball, race riots and childhood, Mingus and Mongo Santamaria. Featuring a powerful score by Smith’s long-time collaborator Marc Anthony Thompson (aka Chocolate Genius) and lighting design by Jose Lopez. A projected art film of the Watts Towers backdrops the performance, photographed and designed by Daniel Foster.