NEWS: Career histories of five Inner City
alumni documented in initial collaboration with
Performing Arts Legacy Project - More Info

EVENTS: Rocky Carroll stars in dramatic play
reading of August Wilson’s “How I Learned What I Learned” at LA Theatre Center.​ - More Info

Left photo: Ernest Dillihay, LAICCC board member and executive director, Cultural Legacy Project; Charles Floyd Johnson, managing partner, CHARTOR Entertainment; Rocky Carroll; Dr. Victor Leo Walker II, managing partner, CHARTOR Entertainment. Center photo: Rocky Carroll in performance of August Wilson's autobiographical solo play "How I Learned What I Learned." Right photo: Ted Lange (left) and Glynn Turman flank Art Evans as he is presented with a Special Commendation from City of Los Angeles Council District 4. All photos by Burt Harris. 

ICCC alumnus Art Evans was presented a commendation from Los Angeles City Council District 4 in recognition of his long career and service to the community as an actor, director, teacher and mentor. Fellow ICCC alums Ted Lange and Glynn Turman presented the commendation.

The April 15 event was presented by Los Angeles Inner City Cultural Center (LAICCC), 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, Arts Culture Entertainment and UCLA Beloved Community Initiative (BCI).

UCLA Beloved Community Initiative celebrates 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.

Further information: https://www.uclabelovedcommunityinitiative.org

LAICCC's Los Angeles premiere of August Wilson's
"How I Learned What I Learned," starring Rocky Carroll,
kicks off UCLA Beloved Community Awareness Week

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 and ICCC alumnus August Wilson, was given a stunning performance by Rocky Carroll on April 15 at Los Angeles Theatre Center, serving as a preview to UCLA’s annual Beloved Community Awareness Week April 18-25. This is the third year in which LAICCC has partnered with the UCLA Beloved Community Initiative in presenting Beloved Community Awareness Week.

To read the printed program for the April 15 event, click here. The program contains much more detailed information about the event and the participants.

For Carroll, who is now in his 15th season of playing Leon Vance on the long-running CBS hit dramatic series “NCIS” and its various spinoffs, the April 15 event was an opportunity for him to revisit his theatrical roots and his relationship with August Wilson. Dating from the first workshops in 1997, he was an original cast member of Wilson’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “The Piano Lesson” and was later nominated for Tony and Drama Desk Awards for his performance in the Broadway production before he moved to Los Angeles to begin his TV and film career as an actor and later as a director.

Here's a clip from Rocky Carroll’s recent appearance on KTLA Morning News, courtesy of KTLA Channel 5 Los Angeles:

https://ktla.com/video/ncis-star-rocky-carroll-talks-about-being-in-the-play-how-i-learned-what-i-learned/8561238/

Text continues underneath the flyer below.

Following the play reading, Charles Floyd Johnson (Executive Producer of NCIS, Magnum PI, JAG, Rockford Files, the NAACP Image Award winning film Red Tails) hosted 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.

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 those of the Penumbra Theater in Minneapolis. He is but one of many distinguished alumni of LAICCC. The list of our notable alumni and associates can be found under the Cultural Legacy tab on this website.

Rocky Carroll joined in the 25th Anniversary 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, Dr. Monica White Ndounou, and moderator Dr. Oscar Edwards. Complete bios of hosts CHARTOR Entertainment managing partners Charles Floyd Johnson and Victor Leo Walker II and all the 25th anniversary retrospective panelists are in the printed program. 

(A PDF of  “Black Theatre's Unprecedented Times,” published by and © by the African Grove Institute for the Arts, Inc. (AGIA, Inc.) and the Black Theatre Network (BTN), which followed the 1998 Town Hall, may be found here.)