W&L’s Lenfest Center Presents Screening of ‘BASQUIAT’ Jeffrey Wright stars as the visionary artist Jean-Michel Basquiat in the 1996 biopic.

The Lenfest Center for the Arts
September 2, 2026

Washington and Lee University’s Lenfest Center for the Arts presents a screening of the 1996 film “BASQUIAT” at 7 p.m. on Sept. 15 in Stackhouse Theater in Elrod Commons.

The event, which is free and open to the public, is part of the Lenfest Center’s Outreach & Engagement (O&E) Series, which fosters immersive and collaborative university-community interactions. The screening also supplements the Lenfest Center’s opening event, “In Honor of Jean-Michel Basquiat,” a solo theatrical performance created and performed by Obie Award-winning actor and playwright Roger Guenveur Smith, at 7:30 p.m. on Sept. 28 in the Keller Theatre.

Directed by Julian Schnabel, “BASQUIAT” is a tribute to his friend and fellow painter, Jean-Michel Basquiat, and provides a sensory immersion into the much-mythologized world of art in 1980s New York. The biopic stars Jeffrey Wright as Basquiat, whose rise from graffiti tagger to art star forces him to confront the glare of sudden fame, the challenges that accompany it and the difficulties of being self-determining and free in America.

With an ensemble cast that features Benicio Del Toro, Gary Oldman, Christopher Walken, Parker Posey and David Bowie, Schnabel’s directorial debut is a profoundly expressive elegy for a radiant life cut short.

For a full list of events and performances, visit the Lenfest Center’s website.

The Lenfest Center for the Arts, home of the Department of Theater, Dance and Film Studies, the Department of Music and Department of Art and Art History, is a multi-use facility designed and equipped to accommodate a broad spectrum of the performing arts, including theater, musical theater, opera and operetta, choral and band music, dance and performance art, in one energizing complex.