STAGE : The Art of Persuasion : Shabaka, the actor, director and teacher, is putting his heart into healing the wounds of L.A. with projects that raise consciousness and bind communities

Although it’s been a less than stellar time for race relations in Los Angeles, one of this city’s premier African-American theater artists is having “his best year in a long time.”

It’s not that Shabaka Barry Henley, best known by the single name Shabaka, is taking the troubles lying down. On the contrary, this multitalented actor-director sees them as part of an ongoing process of change--the cause that’s long fueled his work.

“I am concerned about what’s going to happen in the future,” says Henley, whose dexterous staging of Athol Fugard’s “Blood Knot” runs through the end of August at Occidental College’s Keck Theater. “People saw April 29 as a shocking apocalyptic event. I saw it more as a match that was lit next to a powder keg that could still blow sky high again.”

At the heart of the matter, of course, are longstanding inequities between Los Angeles’ various ethnic groups. “The African-American community has seen a public devaluation of their lives,” Henley, a veteran San Francisco Mime Troupe performer who’s lived in L.A. since 1985, continues. “Everybody knows somebody who’s been assaulted, with the constant and increasing abuse by the police and sheriffs.

“The energy of my work has always been motivated by those realities. I’m just trying to create an opportunity to do it in a larger medium.”

The larger mediums have indeed been good to Henley lately. He spent the early part of this year as a season regular on the CBS series “Royal Family,” his second gig for the television department of Eddie Murphy’s production company, which Henley is “sure will lead to more.” He also played the judge in a TV movie courtroom drama called “ ‘Till Death Do Us Part.”

Henley also has completed a role in “Blue Pastures,” a film that stars Rusty Cundieff, one of his “workshop proteges.” Henley is also currently in negotiations for a leading role in an upcoming Charles Burnett film.

Yet this L.A. theater mainstay hasn’t totally gone over to the mass media side. Henley has also continued his stage work, teaching and arts administration in a variety of forums.

On the theater front, Henley appeared in this season’s Taper production of Shakespeare’s “Richard II.” And he continues to lead the Black Theater Artists Workshop, a group of African-American writers, actors and directors who first came together under the aegis of the late Los Angeles Theatre Center.

The workshop recently received a grant from the California Arts Council to support a fall play-reading series at the Ivar Theater. It also has a grant pending with the city’s Cultural Affairs Department for a project focusing on interrelations between the African-American and Asian-American communities.

Henley also takes the lectern for a teaching gig now and then, as well as serving on such committees as the advisory board investigating possible futures for the LATC building.

Most of these pursuits bear the stamp of Henley’s concern with bettering the lot not only of African-American artists, but of all Angelenos whose lives are affected by the ongoing tensions. And while he’s hardly had any time off during this busy streak, Henley acknowledges it has been a year of emotional ups and downs.

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“When the (Rodney G.) King incident happened, there was a great deal of hope that it would be a positive thing, a sign saying that now the world will see what’s happening,” he says. “But after watching one day of the trial, I realized those guys were going to get off.

“I made bets they would get off, even one with a person who (has been) assaulted,” Henley continues. “I hate to say this, but I made money.”

Henley stresses the connection between the King beating trial verdict and other recent occurrences. “It was a one-two punch,” he says. “First, the death of Latasha Harlins--and the woman (convicted of shooting her) receiving no (prison term)--told the community that the lives of our children are worth nothing.”

It is with these incidents in mind that Henley turns to the arts. Even as he takes roles in film and television, he continues to pursue projects whose goals are much more obviously tied to civic problems.

With the Black Theater Artists Workshop--which is likely to undergo a name change in the near future--he’s out to promote artists and projects that speak to what’s going on in L.A. right now.

“There are artists who are chomping at the bit, waiting for us to get something going,” says Henley of the group, which also includes Tarabu Betseiri and resident director Sati Jamal, and whose current fiscal receiver is the Asian-American artists’ group Great Leap. “We want to build our infrastructure though. AT LATC, they had the internal apparatus and the nonprofit status and now we have to do everything.”

The workshop is, in fact, just starting to realize how much organizational work has to go into an operation such as theirs. “We never considered ceasing to exist, but we didn’t come to terms with the post-LATC relationship right off the bat and we didn’t want to go backward either,” says Henley.

“We wanted to rebuild in a manner that would take us forward, to actually do things and not just hang around a building rehearsing without any money. Some of the other groups are hanging around the building, but it’s not the same as when LATC was LATC.”

One possible workshop project, for which the group and Great Leap have applied for a Cultural Affairs grant, is to send teams consisting of an African-American and an Asian-American actor into the schools. “It’s from the old guerrilla warfare model of cells of two in the field,” quips Henley.

“One of the only regrets about it is that project hasn’t addressed the Latino community so far,” Henley continues, adding that he would like to build a future work around issues of immigration and the Latino community, in collaboration with Latino artists.

“I saw martial law created in Pico-Union, when Daryl Gates came out and said a large percent of people responsible were illegal aliens,” says Henley, referring back once again to the April-May unrest to explain his motives for future theater works. “I heard incredible horror stories about the abandonment of due process.”

Inevitably, Henley’s concern with relations not only between individuals, but also between communities, have led him to efforts at the administrative level.

He serves on the ongoing LATC advisory board, for instance. “We cannot bring an organization (into the LATC building) that will not be accountable to the demographics of the city,” says Henley, reiterating concerns he’s expressed to that body. “The people have a right to access to it, and if you bring in an organization that’s not accountable, that may be one of the building that goes up in smoke also (next time).” (The city is considering organizing a cooperative of diverse organizations that would use the facility.)

The case of the LATC facility, however, is just one question in a larger matrix of unresolved issues. “There’s been a lot of cosmetic change,” says Henley of progress made toward diversification in the arts. “But you can’t exclude people from this larger arts funding process, including the lesser-known and smaller artists. We have to get out there and find out who they are and include them in the new vision of Los Angeles.”

Henley believes this can be accomplished partly because he’s still got faith in the power of the arts to make a difference. “I think we can help,” he says. “I don’t try to place any value on what I do (above) what anybody else in other professions do. A lot of people have to do a lot of things. As artists, we have to begin to address the situation, to raise our own consciousness and then the public’s consciousness.”