2008–09 season > Joe Turner’s Come and Gone > Who’s who
who’s who
August Wilson, Playwright
Delroy Lindo, Director
Scott Bradley, Scenic Design
Reggie Ray, Costume Design
Cliff Caruthers, Sound Design
William H. Grant III, Lighting Design
Dwight Andrews, Music Director
Douglas A. Jones, Jr., Dramaturg
Cynthia Cahill *, Stage Manager
Amy Potozkin, Casting
Alan Filderman, Casting
Victoria Northridge, Studio Teacher
Taura Musgrove, Assistant to the Director
Cast (in order of appearance)
Barry Shabaka Henley, Seth Holly Barry
Kim Staunton, Bertha Holly
Brent Jennings, Bynum Walker
Dan Hiatt, Rutherford Selig
Don Guillory, Jeremy Furlow
Teagle F. Bougere, Herald Loomis
Inglish Amore Hills, Zonia Loomis
Nia Reneé Warren, Zonia Loomis
Tiffany Michelle Thompson, Mattie Campbell
Keanu Beausier, Reuben Mercer
Victor McElhaney, Reuben Mercer
Erica Peeples, Molly Cunningham
Kenya Brome, Martha Pentecost
August Wilson
Playwright
August Wilson authored Fences, Gem of the Ocean, Jitney, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, King Hedley II, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, The Piano Lesson, Radio Golf, Seven Guitars and Two Trains Running—a ten-play cycle exploring the heritage and experience of African Americans, decade-by-decade, through the 20th century. His plays have garnered numerous awards including Great Britain’s Olivier Award, two Pulitzer Prizes, a Tony Award and New York Drama Critics Circle Awards for seven plays including Joe Turner. Individually, he received Rockefeller and Guggenheim Fellowships in playwriting, the 2003 Heinz Award, the Whiting Writers Award and others. He received numerous honorary degrees from colleges and universities, and was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences as well as the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 1999, he was awarded a National Humanities Medal by the President of the United States, and the Broadway theatre located at 245 West 52nd Street was renamed the August Wilson Theatre in honor of his deep legacy to American drama in October 2005. August was posthumously inducted into the Theater Hall of Fame in 2007.
Delroy Lindo
Director
Delroy Lindo previously directed Blue Door at Berkeley Rep and Medal of Honor Rag in LA, for which he was named Best Director by LA Weekly. He appeared in the Broadway and national tour productions of Master Harold…and the Boys; and on Broadway in Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, for which he received Tony and Drama Desk nominations for best actor. He won an NAACP Image Award and a Helen Hayes Award nomination for his performance as Walter Lee in A Raisin in the Sun, produced at the Kennedy Center and LA’s Wilshire Theatre. He appeared in The Exonerated at London’s Riverside Theatre Company, and this summer portrayed the title role in Agamemnon at LA’s Getty Villa. Delroy has also worked off Broadway and extensively in regional theaters throughout the US and Canada. His film credits include The Cider House Rules, Clockers, The Core, Crooklyn, Get Shorty, Gone in 60 Seconds, Heist, A Life Less Ordinary, Malcolm X, The One, Ransom, Romeo Must Die and Wondrous Oblivion. Most recently, he appeared in This Christmas, also serving as an executive producer. Delroy’s television credits include Kidnapped, The Exonerated, Glory and Honor, Profoundly Normal, Soul of the Game and the Peabody Award-winning Strange Justice. He has written, produced and directed documentary interviews featuring Spike Lee, Charles Burnett and Joan Chen. To Lloyd and August: Thank you for the gift of participation in this exquisite work, and an extraordinary creative legacy to emulate, nurture and expand.
Scott Bradley
Scenic Designer
Scott Bradley has designed sets for Berkeley Rep productions of The Glass Menagerie as well as Eurydice, Mary Zimmerman’s Journey to the West and The Notebooks of Leonardo DaVinci, for which he received Bay Area Critics Circle Awards. On Broadway, Scott designed the original Joe Turner’s Come and Gone in 1988, earning him a Drama Desk Award nomination; he won a Drama Desk Award and Tony nomination in 1996 with the Broadway production of August Wilson’s Seven Guitars. Scott has designed almost all of Wilson’s cannon, including Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom at Seattle Rep and The Goodman, Jitney at The Alley and Milwaukee Rep, Fences at Oregon Shakespeare Festival and Gem of the Ocean at Arena Stage. Currently he is working on designs for the Broadway revival of For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf.
Reggie Ray
Costume Designer
Reggie Ray’s costume designs have been seen at theatres around the country including Arena Stage, Barksdale Theatre, Everyman Theatre, the Guthrie, the John F. Kennedy Center, Lincoln Center Theatre, Missouri Repertory Theatre, Montclair Repertory Theatre, National Black Theatre Festival, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Second Stage, Source Theatre, Studio Theatre, Theatre of the First Amendment, Vineyard Playhouse, Rutgers University and Woolly Mammoth Theatre. He has also dressed numerous celebrity clients including Maya Angelou, Regina Belle, Diahann Carroll, TC Carson, Jennifer Holliday, Richard Roundtree, Tony Terry, Alyson Williams and Christopher Williams, among others. He has received seven Woodie King, Jr Awards for his work at St. Louis Black Repertory Company, where he is the resident costume designer, and has received a Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Costume Design for the Washington, D.C. production of Spunk. Reggie is also the resident instructor of costume design/make-up for Howard University’s department of theatre arts.
Cliff Caruthers
Sound Designer
Cliff Caruthers has created soundscapes and music for over a hundred Bay Area productions, including last season’s TRAGEDY: a tragedy, Anna Bella Eema for Crowded Fire, Brainpeople for A.C.T. and Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World for Cutting Ball Theater. He is an artistic associate at Cutting Ball Theater Company, a company member of Crowded Fire and the resident sound designer for TheatreWorks. Cliff has also created sound designs for A.C.T., Cal Shakes and Traveling Jewish Theatre. Outside the theatre world, he is co-curator of the San Francisco Tape Music Center and technical director for the San Francisco Electronic Music Festival. Cliff’s electronic music has been performed at the 2007 Prague Quadrennial, 964 Natoma, Deep Wireless, Noise Pancakes, SFEMF, SFTMF and the Society for Electroacoustic Music in the United States.
William H. Grant III
Lighting Designer
William H. Grant III has designed lighting for dance, opera and theatre throughout the world. Highlights of his international projects include Porgy & Bess in Rio de Janeiro, and a spoken/signed Our Town in Omsk, Siberia. William has also designed for Alabama Shakespeare Festival, The Alliance Theatre, Cleveland Play House and North Shore Music Theatre, as well as for Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater and American Ballet Theatre. He was resident designer for the Philadelphia Dance Company for more than 25 years. William’s lighting has also illuminated the stages of The Academy of Music in Philadelphia, The Kennedy Center and The Metropolitan Opera House. Most recently, his lighting design was seen in the successful Broadway revival of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, directed by Debbie Allen, with Terrence Howard, James Earl Jones, Phylicia Rashad and Anika Noni Rose.
Dwight Andrews
Music Director
Dwight Andrews is a composer, musician, educator and minister. He is an associate professor of music theory at Emory University and senior minister at First Congregational Church in Atlanta. He holds degrees from the University of Michigan, a Masters of Divinity degree from the Yale Divinity School and a Ph.D. in music theory from Yale University. Recognized for his collaborations with playwright August Wilson and director Lloyd Richards, he served as musical director for the Broadway productions of Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, The Piano Lesson and Seven Guitars, as well as the Broadway revival productions of A Raisin in the Sun and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. Dwight also served as music supervisor for the recent Kennedy Center production of August Wilson’s 20th Century, a presentation of Wilson’s entire ten-play cycle. Dwight has also written for film and appeared on over 25 jazz and new music recordings.
Douglas A. Jones, Jr.
Dramaturg
Douglas A. Jones, Jr. is a Ph.D. student in drama and humanities at Stanford University, studying dramatic literature and criticism as well as performance theory. He specializes in the cultural and political history of 19th-century America, particularly the antebellum period. This production marks Douglas’ dramaturgical debut with Berkeley Rep and he is delighted to have worked with this extraordinary cast and with Delroy. Douglas last served as dramaturg for a production of James Baldwin’s The Amen Corner, directed by Walter Dallas at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center in Maryland. He holds a Master’s degree in theatre history and criticism, and graduated with honors from New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts department of drama.
cast
Keanu Beausier
Reuben Mercer
Keanu Beausier, an 8th grade student at Oakland School of the Arts, is excited to make his Berkeley Rep debut with this production of Joe Turner’s Come and Gone. The 13-year-old is an accomplished dancer who has performed with the Akat Dance Troupe, appeared in a short film for Cinema Sports and worked in numerous commercials. He has also studied acting for television and film with JRP, Kids on Camera, David Rosenthal and Mitchell Gosset. Last winter, he participated in the Berkeley Rep School of Theatre Performance Ensemble for Argonautika, where he studied and performed a rendition of The Odyssey.
Teagle F. Bougere *
Herald Loomis
Teagle F. Bougere returns to Berkeley Rep where he appeared in 2007’s Blue Door. His Broadway credits include Joseph Asagai in A Raisin in the Sun and Caliban in The Tempest, directed by George C. Wolfe. His many appearances with the New York Shakespeare Festival include Antony & Cleopatra, directed by Vanessa Redgrave; Henry V; Macbeth; and Space, written and directed by Tina Landau. Selected off-Broadway credits include Tony Smalls in A Solider’s Play at Second Stage Theater and Hilton in A Fair Country at Lincoln Center Theater. His regional credits include Christopher in Blue/Orange at The Old Globe in San Diego. Teagle recently completed filming Hill & Gully, which will be released in 2009. Other film credits include A Beautiful Mind, The Imposters, Night at the Museum, The Pelican Brief and Two Weeks Notice. Teagle’s television credits include Conviction, Cosby, The Job, Law & Order, Third Watch and What the Deaf Man Heard.
Kenya Brome *
Martha Pentecost
Kenya Brome recently played Azmera in Tranced at San Jose Repertory Theatre. Her other regional credits include Nomathemba at The Huntington Theatre, Once On This Island at Actors Theatre of Louisville, Valley Song at Barrington Stage Theatre and the American premiere of …A Young Lady From Rwanda at Kansas City Repertory Theatre. She has a supporting role in the upcoming film Order of Redemption, and has guest starred on NBC’s Law & Order. Her other television credits include All My Children, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Third Watch and the pilot of NBC’s Kings. Her face is known from the award-winning Citibank Identity Theft Protection spots and her voice is heard reading the recorded version of Shana Burg’s book A Thousand Never Evers. Kenya is a graduate of Brown University.
Don Guillory *
Jeremy Furlow
Don Guillory was most recently seen in a staged reading of Jason Grote’s Box Americana at the O’Neill National Playwrights Conference. Prior to that, he played Lincoln in Suzan-Lori Parks’ Topdog/Underdog at Actors Theatre of Louisville and John Nevins in Alice Childress’ Trouble in Mind at Yale Repertory Theatre. He was also seen as Wendell Freemen on the daytime soap One Life to Live. A native of New Orleans, Don earned two of that city’s best actor awards—the Artie, and The Big Easy—in 2001 and 2003, and was selected to study at the Guthrie Theater as a part of the Guthrie Experience Project in 2006. Don has a BS in Political Science from Dillard University and an M.F.A. in theatre from the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, where he was the recipient of Kushner and Seidman Scholarships.
Barry Shabaka Henley *
Seth Holly
Barry Shabaka Henley makes his Berkeley Rep debut with this production. He played Doub in the New York and West End productions of August Wilson’s Jitney, which were recognized with Drama Desk, Obie and Olivier Awards for best ensemble, and was a member of the Tony Award-winning San Francisco Mime Troupe. His TV credits include regular roles in Showtime’s Barbershop and Robbery Homicide Division, recurring roles in Close to Home, Heroes, Hustle, Numb3rs and NYPD Blue, and guest-star roles on Crossing Jordan, ER, Grey’s Anatomy and Providence. Barry also appeared in HBO’s TV movie Lackawanna Blues. He recently completed shooting for The Horseman, starring Dennis Quaid, and appeared as Lieutenant Castillo in Miami Vice with Tom Cruise, Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx. Barry’s other film work includes roles in Ali, Bullworth, Collateral, Four Brothers, Patch Adams, Rush Hour and The Terminal.
Dan Hiatt *
Rutherford Selig
Dan Hiatt previously has appeared at Berkeley Rep as Gabe in Dinner with Friends, and Bastian in Menocchio. Other credits include Curse of the Starving Class, The Government Inspector, The Rivals and Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead at American Conservatory Theater; A Flea in Her Ear, Enchanted April, The Immigrant and This Wonderful Life at San Jose Rep; As You Like It, King John, Nicholas Nickleby, Twelfth Night and Uncle Vanya at California Shakespeare Theatre. He has appeared in many productions at The Eureka Theatre, The Magic Theatre, Marin Theatre Company, TheatreWorks and many other Bay Area companies. Dan’s regional theatre credits include performances at Arizona Theatre Company, Ford’s Theatre, the Huntington, Idaho Shakespeare Festival, Pasadena Playhouse, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Studio Arena Theatre and Stage West in Toronto.
Inglish Amore Hills
Zonia Loomis
Inglish Amore Hills has previously performed with her school, at Amador Theatre’s summer drama camp and at the Alameda County Fair, where she took third place in singing and hip-hop competitions. She has also been a model for the David’s Bridal wedding show for the past three years. Now a sixth grader at Pleasanton Middle School, Inglish is pleased to make her professional stage debut with this production of Joe Turner’s Come and Gone.
Brent Jennings *
Bynum Walker
Brent Jennings recently completed a run of Taming of the Shrew with Shakespeare Festival/LA. His other Southern California credits include Dramalogue-winning turns in East Texas Hotlinks at The Met Theatre and Bedfellows with Echo Theater Company, as well as Ajax and Two Rooms at La Jolla Playhouse. Regionally, he’s worked at Arena Stage, Geva Theatre, The Goodman Theatre, Philadelphia’s Walnut Street Theater, Yale Rep and nine seasons with the O’Neill Playwrights’ Conference. His New York credits include the Negro Ensemble Company’s A Soldier’s Play and The Mighty Gents on Broadway, and off-Broadway stints at American Place Theatre, Manhattan Theatre Club, New York Shakespeare Festival, New Federal Theatre and Phoenix Theatre Ensemble. Brent’s numerous film credits include Another 48HRs, Brubaker, Life, Red Heat, The Serpent and the Rainbow, Witness and, more recently, John Sayles’ Honeydripper. Brent has also appeared in numerous HBO specials, television movies and network TV shows.
Victor McElhaney
Reuben Mercer
Victor McElhaney is an Oakland native, an honor student at UCs Berkley Maynard Academy and member of True Vine MBC. He is a sought-after percussionist who has studied and performed with African Roots of Jazz and Sdouae, and been a soloist opening act for Arthur Blythe Jazz Quartet, Candido Oye Oba and the Ray Appleton Trio at the Beijing International Cultural Tourism Expo, the Oakland Art & Soul Festival, Yoshi’s Jazz House and other notable venues. Victor first developed a passion for acting in Mrs. Turner’s Munchkin Theater and black history month productions at Shelton’s Primary Education Center in Berkeley. In 2007, he performed as Chichimec in the Oakland Children’s Fairyland production of Mexica. He has also performed in the Children’s Creative and Performance Arts Academy production of The Music Man in San Diego.
Erica Peeples *
Molly Cunningham
Having recently completed her undergraduate studies at The Juilliard School, Erica Peeples is poised for a promising career. Recent credits include readings of Crippled Sisters at the New York Theatre Workshop, and Drip, a play by Christina Anderson at Ars Nova. Notable roles during her time at Juilliard include the super-energized twelve year old Mashenka in Diary of a Scoundrel and the timid, tough girl Daisy in Kara Lee Corthron’s Wild Black-Eyed Susans. Erica’s TV and film credits include Law & Order: Criminal Intent and the role of AJ in the NYU student short film Fighter.
Kim Staunton *
Bertha Holly
Kim Staunton was last seen as Mrs. Muller in Doubt at the Denver Center Theatre Company, where she has been a company member for the past seven seasons. Kim has also appeared regionally at Arena Stage, Arizona Theatre Company, Colorado Shakespeare Festival, the Folger Theatre, Hartford Stage, the O’Neill Theater Center, Pittsburgh Public Theater, South Coast Repertory and Virginia Stage Company, as well as performing in numerous productions on and off Broadway in New York. Kim’s film credits include Amos and Andrew, Bark, Changing Lanes, Deceived, Dragonfly, Heat, Holy Man and First Sunday. Her TV appearances include guest-star roles on Army Wives, Bones, City of Angels, Eleventh Hour, Judging Amy, Law & Order, New York Undercover, The Nine, Strong Medicine and TNT’s original movie Glory and Honor. Kim is a native of Washington, DC, and a graduate of The Juilliard School.
Tiffany Michelle Thompson *
Mattie Campbell
Tiffany Michelle Thompson was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan, and was last seen at Berkeley Rep when she portrayed Leefy Lee in Polk County here and at McCarter Theatre Center. She recently played recurring character Angela Bowden in Law & Order: SVU. In addition to her involvement with Polk County, Tiffany’s favorite roles include Danita in the off-Broadway production of After the Show, and Yolanda in Crowns at Marine Theater. Tiffany also served as understudy for the role of Hannah in the 2004 Broadway production of Drowning Crow with Manhattan Theatre Club. In addition to Law & Order: SVU, Tiffany’s screen credits include episodes of Chappelle’s Show, Guiding Light, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Miracle’s Boys and the indie film Set Up.
Nia Reneé Warren
Zonia Loomis
Nia Reneé Warren, age 10, has been acting, singing, dancing and modeling for three years, training with Moonlight Entertainment over the summers. She was an ensemble member in the Bay Area production High School Musical, played the lead in High School Musical 2 this past year and is very active in school productions at Montclair Elementary School. Nia, an accomplished writer, began her first screenplay—named A Girl Called Linda—at age 8, and last year was the winner of the Oakland Unified School District’s Martin Luther King, Jr, Oratorical—a district-wide competition which focuses on students writing and giving original speeches. She is also a professional model for Gap, Macy’s and Mervyns, and is the keyboardist for a local band called One Hour Parking.
* Member of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Actors and Stage Managers in the United States.
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