Erin Aubry Kaplan

Finding Alan

Erin Aubry Kaplan
Photos by Ted SoquiWhen my husband, Alan, confessed not long after we got married that he wanted to take acting lessons, I was thrilled – Alan was in for hell, and I could help him through it. He could prosper in a way that I never did when I studied......
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The Long Road Home

Erin Aubry Kaplan
Photo by Kevin ScanlonPoet Kamau Daáood is the founder, presiding elder statesman, friend and mentor to the close-knit arts scene in Leimert Park — and he has always more than looked the part of godfather. Tall and imposing, Daáood is known around the block for his rakish caps and sage’s......

Back to Square One

Erin Aubry Kaplan
When Middle College High School opened in a cluster of bungalows on the campus of Los Angeles Southwest College back in 1989, it was an educational experiment in more ways than one. Cast in a new national model of public high schools operating at junior colleges, Middle College was a......

The Defense Rests – Not in Peace

Erin Aubry Kaplan
Johnnie Cochran was not a saint. That hardly needs to be said about trial lawyers, particularly those as savvy and smooth-talking as Cochran; he practically defined the urbane intellect and glossy ambitions that made L.A. Law such a zeitgeist show of the ’80s and set a nonfiction standard for the......

Live Short and Prosper

Erin Aubry Kaplan
Well, I spoke too soon. When I wrote a column about a month ago decrying the devolution of Black History Month into so much conservative white-run propaganda and my unease with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice being its latest poster girl for progress, I figured the GOP had plenty to......

Blurring the Color Lines

Erin Aubry Kaplan
A lot can happen in three years. In February of ’02, just about every black notable in town, from mighty Maxine Waters down to a contingent of Crenshaw small-business owners, was up in arms about the proposed scuttling of Police Chief Bernard Parks by Mayor Jim Hahn. Never mind that......
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It’s the Gospel Half-Truth

Erin Aubry Kaplan
Photo by Alfeo DixonIt’s official: The Chitlin Circuit, that modern road show of gospel plays made by black people for black people, has gone mainstream. Writer-producer Tyler Perry’s Diary of a Mad Black Woman opens in movie theaters Friday, though it remains to be seen whether the niche audience that......

Gun Shy

Erin Aubry Kaplan
Photo by Ted SoquiI swear it’s getting to be like the Rashomon replay from hell. Thirteen-year-old Devin Brown was shot and killed by the LAPD two weeks ago, swelling an already bloated history of questionable use-of-force incidents involving black people that, save for a detail here and there, feel almost......

This Time, It’s Not Personal . . . or Is It?

Erin Aubry Kaplan
Photo by Ted Soqui Bernard Parks is in a place that most campaign and political strategists would describe as an existential hell: Everybody knows who he is, but how many know what he stands for? Sure, everybody knew what he stood for when he was police chief — spit and......
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Perform, He Said

Erin Aubry Kaplan
Photo by Brian J. LilienthalI must confess, I thought I was in for a bad night. In the small, stark confines of Theatre/Theater, the proceedings begin offhandedly, almost haphazardly, with no sprightly pre-show announcements urging us to enjoy the evening or to turn off cell phones. The lights dim, but......