THE MAGNIFICENT DUNBAR HOTEL at the Los Angeles Theatre Center

Photo by Tomoko Matsushita

Neal Weaver  – Stage Raw

Levy Lee Simon’s play celebrates the life and times of The Dunbar Hotel, on Los Angeles’s Central Avenue. As a luxury hotel serving the African-American community at a time when poverty and discrimination made most black-oriented hotels shabby and lacking in even basic amenities, it soon became a revered institution hosting black celebrities, and offering a venue for black musicians, jazz-men and performers, including Lionel Hampton, Billie Holiday, and Louis Armstrong — many of them appearing as characters in Simon’s play. Read more…

Now running through Dec. 21.