Wednesday, November 12, 2014

Presenting the California Eagle Newspaper (as seen through the eyes of the Robey Theatre Company).


THE MAGNIFICENT DUNBAR HOTEL REOPENS
Article written by Almena Davis

The Magnificent Dunbar Hotel, written by the accomplished playwright Levy Lee Simon, will reopen its doors on November 22, 2014 at 8pm, at the New LATC located at 521 S. Spring in the heart of downtown Los Angeles, with a reception immediately following.

This news reporter had an opportunity to spend a little time with playwright Levy Lee Simon, interviewing him in regards to the Dunbar Hotel’s reopening on stage at the Robey Theatre Company.

QUESTION: What prompted you to write The Magnificent Dunbar Hotel?

MR. SIMON: Last year around July/August of 2013 I got a call from Ben Guillory who asked if I’d be interested in writing a play on commission about the Dunbar Hotel. I didn’t know much about the Dunbar at the time. I mean, I knew it existed and why but surely was not aware of the breadth of meaning that came with the name and history. Anyway, sounded interesting to me, and since it was a Robey project and I consider myself a part of the Robey Theatre Company, I was compelled to give it a shot. 

QUESTION: Where and when does the play take place?


Playwright Levy Lee Simon (left) and Ben Guillory (right) director.

MR. SIMON: The Dunbar was built is 1928/9 by John Sommerville, the first Black man to graduate from USC, School of Dentistry. He was a very interesting man and needless to say a visionary in his own right. The hotel had a grand opening in 1929, with a 100 luxury rooms, restaurant, bar, barber shop, beauty shop, and of course a stage. When the stock market crashed later in 1929, he had to sell the hotel, which he eventually did to a group of white investors. Sommerville was above selling it to the coalition of Black businessmen of questionable character who offered to take it off of his hands. When the hotel wasn’t making money, the white investment company ended up selling it to this coalition of Black men known in the underworld to be into, numbers, racketeering, prostitution, bootlegging, etc. John Sommerville wanted no part of that but suddenly his hotel was in the hands of people he despised. So the play begins at that point. 

QUESTION: What is the play, The Magnificent Dunbar Hotel about? 

MR. SIMON: What’s it about? That question, huh? Well, it’s about a time gone by, and a place that once existed. It’s about people and the survival of a people. It’s about poetry, and music. It’s about style, and class, dignity and pride. It’s about all that and what happened to it. Where is all that today and did it fade away with the actual hotel itself? Does the Dunbar represent a rise and decline of a people? Will those people rise again with the same type of pride and dignity the hotel represented? I know that’s a broad stroke but that’s what came out. Ask me tomorrow I may have a different answer, and maybe a more concise one, but I guess that answer will do for now. 

QUESTION: What do you hope people will take from this production? 

MR. SIMON: So much. It’s not just one thing. It’s many things and probably things that I don’t know. I always want people to leave the theatre feeling different from when they came in because they have experience something that moved them, educated them or even changed their lives, at the very least causes them to question their perspective on any given issue. My hope is that the play will do all that. Maybe it will cause people to question not only what happened to the hotel but what happened to the people, a community that was so aware, so alert and so tight. How did we go from there to what we have today, which in my mind is questionable at best. I offer no answers. I’m just putting it out there in what I hope is a very provocative, theatrical and entertaining way, so people can take from it what they will.
Duke Ellington, one of the many artists who perform at the Dunbar Hotel.

I did tons of research about the Dunbar Hotel and the 1930s and 40s, Los Angeles. It was an amazing time for Black people and Central Avenue was the place to be. There were some very colorful characters many whom I knew about but more who I didn’t know about and it was awesome to get to know them. The time was charged in every way, artistically, socially and politically speaking. As always when I do research I wonder why I didn’t know more about this era in American History. Clearly it has been hidden in the darkness. I guess it’s partly my objective along with the Robey to bring the story, the people, the era, the hotel to light.
I have to take a moment to thank the Southern California Library for Research, on Vermont. I can’t tell you the number of times I sat in that library reading intimate details about people that gave me goose bumps. I fell fortunate to have the opportunity to write the play and am ever thankful to the Robey for giving me the opportunity to do so. 

Dunbar Hotel in the 1930's


The Magnificent Dunbar Hotel reopens November 22nd, 8pm at the New LATC 514 S. Spring St. Los Angeles, CA 90013

(Previews November 20-21st)
Preview – $15 | Opening Night (w/Reception) – $50 | General Admission – $30 LAUSD Teacher – $20* | Veteran – $20* | Student – $20* | Senior (60+) – $20* Thursdays – $10 (Limited Number Available, Not Available Online)
To Purchase by Phone Please Call – 866-811-4111
For Group Sales Please Call – 213-489-7402
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A little more about playwright Levy Lee Simon
Multiple award winning playwright and artist, Levy Lee Simon is originally from Harlem USA, and a graduate of the prestigious University of Iowa Playwright’s Workshop, MFA. He is the author of twenty plus plays which have received productions and major readings in the US and Caribbean. His plays have been produced and received staged readings at theatres such as: The New Federal Theatre, The Robey Theatre Company, Greenway Arts Alliance, National Black Theatre Festival, The Workshop Theatre, Algonquin Productions, NJoy Productions - LA, St. Croix Center Stage, Freedom Theatre – Phila., Karamu Theatre - Cleveland, Circle Repertory Theatre, The H.A.D.L.E.Y. Players, The Labyrinth Theatre, the Geffen Playhouse, Denver Center, New Jersey Repertory Theatre and more.
Levy Lee is best known for his For the Love of Freedom trilogy about the Haitian revolution and independence, produced by the Robey Theatre Company and the Greenway Arts Alliance, directed by Ben Guillory and, The Bow Wow Club produced by John Marshall Jones at the Stella Adler Theatre in LA, and the National Black Theatre Festival in North Carolina. Other notable plays by Simon include: The Guest at Central Park West, (winner of the 2007 Audelco Award for, Dramatic Production of the Year and Best Playwright) The Stuttering Preacher, DAD, Caseload, Same Train, Smell the Power, Pitbulls and Daffodils, The Last Revolutionary and the cult hit, God the Crackhouse and the Devil.  

Levy Lee’s work has provided him a platform as a recognized playwright in the world of theatre. He is an Audelco Award Winner, Lorraine Hansberry Award winner, Eugene O’Neill Fellow, two time NAACP Best Playwright Nominee, an Ovation Nominee, a Cosby Screenwriting Fellow, the 2011 winner of the New Voices Playwriting Competition, and a recent Shorty nominee. In June of 2014 he was honored by request to be a guest artist at the Great Plains Theatre Conference, and in July is was awarded by the Robey Theatre Company for his contribution to the success of the Robey’s twentieth year celebration.
Studios and productions companies in Hollywood optioned levy Lee’s screenplay adaptations of, The Bow Wow Club, God the Crackhouse and the Devil, and DAD. He is hoping to go into production with them very soon.
As an actor Levy Lee was a cast member of the Pulitzer Prize winning, Tony nominated, The Kentucky Cycle, the England production of Ms. Evers’ Boys at the Barbican and Bristol Old Vic, plus over fifty plays Off- Broadway, Off-Off Broadway in regional theatres across the country and in the Caribbean.
Levy Lee is a proud artist and thespian always seeking to create work that inspires thought, and change. 


Content contributers: Jason Mimms and Kellie Dantzler.