the arts

“At the height of the apartheid era, the Market Theatre in Johannesburg and the Space Theatre in Cape Town, both defiantly nonracial venues in a racially divided country, produced shattering plays about black life under the apartheid regime,” recalled playwright and director Emily Mann in a Times article reflecting on Nelson Mandela’s legacy to the arts.

Toné! was set to perform March 22 at the Grand Theatre Center for the Arts in Tracy, Calif., but the venue announced Wednesday that the group canceled the event “due to illness.”

The play's director Stef O'Driscoll had said at the time there was "a growing trend of censorship and fear-driven decision-making in the arts".

"We need more working class people in politics that know what it's like to be working class. And we need more working class people in the arts. The most creative people out there – musicians, actors, whatever, are working class people. End of it, full stop."

Zhuang, a Chinese national and California Institute of the Arts student who was also known as Emily King, was found unresponsive by her roommate in early February, according to the Sheriff’s Department.