Playbill for Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992: Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

Playbill, volume 94, number 4, featuring the play, "Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992," written by Anna Deavere Smith, directed by George C. Wolfe, and performed at the Cort Theatre, New York, in 1994. The top third of the cover is the masthead, a yellow rectangular field with black type with the magazine's title, [PLAYBILL®] above the text [CORT THEATRE]. Below the masthead is a white field outlined in black, with a black-and-white image depicting the silhouette of four (4) tall palm trees and a fire in the bottom left corner that is giving off a diagonal plume of smoke that darkens the top third of the image. Above the trees is a close-up of two eyes. The title of the play, which is also the main coverline, is written above and just below the top edge of the image in black and white text, [TWILIGHT: / LOS ANGELES, 1992]. The back cover features an ad for Carlton cigarettes. All of the pages are glossy and bound together with staples. Most of the interior pages are off-white with black type with black-and-white images and color images. The magazine has seventy (70) pages.

Materials, dates and provenance

• Date: April 1994
• Published by: Playbill, American, founded 1884
• Edited by: Judy Samuelson
• Subject of: Anna Deavere Smith, American, born 1950
• Subject of: George Costello Wolfe, American, born 1954
• Subject of: Cort Theatre, American, founded 1912
• Type: theater programs
• Medium: ink on paper with metal
• Dimensions: H x W x D (Closed): 8 3/8 × 5 7/16 × 1/8 in. (21.2 × 13.8 × 0.3 cm)
• Dimensions: H x W x D (Open): 8 3/8 × 10 11/16 × 3/4 in. (21.2 × 27.1 × 1.9 cm)
• Place printed: New York City, New York, United States, North and Central America
• Place used: Crown Heights, Brooklyn, New York City, New York, United States, North and Central America
• Place depicted: Los Angeles, California, United States, North and Central America
• Topic: African American
• Topic: Broadway Theatre
• Topic: Drama (Theatre)
• Topic: Justice
• Topic: Police brutality
• Topic: Race relations
• Topic: Resistance
• Topic: U.S. History, 1969-2001
• Object number: 2015.64.12
• Credit Line: Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Kathleen M. Kendrick
• Data Source: National Museum of African American History and Culture

Sources and reuse

Catalogue descriptions and facts adapted from National Museum of African American History and Culture through the Smithsonian's official Open Access dataset. This record explicitly marks its metadata CC0 1.0; formatting and selection have been changed. The underlying object's rights statement is: Playbill used by permission. All rights reserved, Playbill Inc Permission required for use. Proper usage is the responsibility of the user.