A Huey P. Newton Story March 3, 2011

Writer and actor Roger Guenveur Smith will discuss A Huey P. Newton Story, which he wrote and performed. The Peabody Award-winning film based on Smith’s Obie Award-winning solo stage performance of the same name was documented with multiple cameras by Spike Lee in front of a live studio audience in New York. Scored by Marc Anthony Thompson (aka Chocolate Genius) with featured instrumentation by Branford Marsalis, the film captures the vitality of Smith’s stage portrayal of the late Newton, the co-founder of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense. The New York Times describes Smith’s portrayal as “dead-on … from the reedy voice to the posture of defiance” and the narrative (drawn mostly from the activist’s writings and interviews) as “a ride through the theme park of Newton's strange life, a life full of sound and fury.”

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