The Public Theater (Artistic Director Oskar Eustis; Executive Director Andrew D. Hamingson) will present a special performance of Roger Guenveur Smith's JUAN AND JOHN this Saturday, December 5, that will be attended by legendary Dominican-American pitcher Juan Marichal and the family of the late L.A. Dodgers catcher John Roseboro. The famous on-field confrontation between Juan and John is the basis of Smith's play. Dr. Leonel Fernandez Reyna, President of the Dominican Republic and a longtime supporter of Smith's work, will also attend the December 5 evening performance.
In JUAN AND JOHN, it's 1965 and there's a riot going on. Watts and Vietnam are burning. So is La Republica Dominicana. In San Francisco, it's the Giants vs. the Dodgers. Juan Marichal vs. John Roseboro. Cain vs. Abel. Roger Guenveur Smith and Marc Anthony Thompson, the Obie-winning creators of A Huey P. Newton Story, return to The Public with new work inspired by ancient themes: rage, retribution, and redemption.
Public LAB, conceived in association with LAByrinth Theater Company, is an annual series of new plays that lets New Yorkers see more of the work they love from The Public in scaled-down productions. Public LAB allows The Public to support more artists, and gives audiences immediate access to new plays in development. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation supported Public LAB with one of the largest grants ever received by the Public Theater.
Roger Guenveur Smith (Creator and Performer of Juan and John) is an actor, writer, and director whose work has been internationally acclaimed. At The Public, he created and performed the OBIE Award-winning A Huey P. Newton Story, which was later adapted into a Peabody Award-winning telefilm directed by Spike Lee. In Lee's Oscar-nominated Do The Right Thing, Smith created the stuttering hero Smiley. Among his historically-inspired theatrical performances are Frederick Douglass Now, Christopher Columbus 1992, and the award-winning duet Inside the Creole Mafia, created in collaboration with New Orleans native Mark Broyard. He directed the distinguished performance trio Culture Clash in their Bessie Award-winning piece Radio Mambo. His recent work includes the solo piece The Watts Tower Project, the Spalding Gray retrospective Leftover Stories To Tell, Who Killed Bob Marley? (which inaugurated Harlem's Gatehouse Theater), and an appearance in the Ridley Scott film American Gangster, opposite Russell Crowe and Denzel Washington.
JUAN MARICHAL is generally regarded as one of the best pitchers in baseball history. The second Major League Baseball player in history to come from the Dominican Republic, Marichal was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1983. He won more games during the 1960s than any other pitcher and shares the distinction, with Sandy Koufax, of being the only Major League pitcher in the modern era to pitch multiple seasons with 25 or more wins. His notorious beating of John Roseboro during an August 22, 1965 Giants/Dodgers game forever marked his career.
JOHN ROSEBORO (1933-2002) was a Major League Baseball catcher from 1957 to 1970. He won two Golden Gloves and was named an All Star four times in the course of his career, which included 11 years with the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers, two with the Minnesota Twins, and one with the Washington Senators. He was the starting catcher for the Dodgers in four World Series - 1959, 1963, 1965 and 1966. Despite the altercation with Juan Marichal in 1965, the two men eventually became friends and Roseboro made a personal appeal to Baseball Hall of Fame administrators to forgive his onetime rival for the incident and consider him for inclusion.
THE PUBLIC THEATER (Oskar Eustis, Artistic Director; Andrew D. Hamingson, Executive Director) was founded by Joseph Papp in 1954 and is now one of the nation's preeminent cultural institutions, producing new plays, musicals, and productions of classics at its downtown and at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park. The Public's mandate to create a theater for all New Yorkers continues to this day onstage and through extensive outreach and education programs. Each year, over 250,000 people attend Public Theater-related productions and events at six downtown stages, including Joe's Pub, and Shakespeare in the Park. The Public has won 42 Tony Awards, 149 Obies, 40 Drama Desk Awards and four Pulitzer Prizes. The Public has brought 52 shows to Broadway, including Sticks and Bones; That Championship Season; A Chorus Line; The Pirates of Penzance; The Tempest; Bring In ‘Da Noise, Bring In ‘Da Funk; On the Town; The Ride Down Mt. Morgan; Topdog/Underdog; Elaine Stritch at Liberty; Take Me Out; Caroline, or Change; Well; Passing Strange; and, most recently, the current Tony Award-winning revival of Hair. www.publictheater.org.
